Does The Biggest Bag Of Dirty Tricks Always Win?

Well, the time has come.  Politics will now consume the airwaves full time until next November.  It isn’t going to be pretty.

I can’t remember a time when I’ve heard so much complaining about negative ads this early.  Of course prior to this year it hadn’t gotten started this early.  But this year it is going full bore thanks to the super pacs.

Of course in order to take advantage of them, you have to have the money to either produce them yourself or have a super pac behind you.  I get a kick out of Newt Gingrich doing so much complaining when the truth of the matter is if he could afford it he’d be doing it too.

Personally I hate negative advertising.  Somehow there seems to be something wrong with a process that depends on tearing your opponent down with half truths and sometime outright lies.  My, how proud the candidates must feel when their ads are successful!  Does it make you wonder about the mindset of these people we elect?  Does it make you wonder about our mindset knowing how well negative ads work?  It’s a form of blood lust.  Thumbs up or thumbs down.

That’s politics I’m told.  There’s nothing that can be done about it.  It’s the nature of the beast.  Do you suppose that’s why there is nothing but partisanship in Congress?  They’ve gotten so used to lying to us or shading the truth that they no longer recognize it?

Is there a politician out there that recognizes his or her own hypocrisy?  Like President Obama bragging that he will raise a billion dollars for his campaign while the country and the people in it are staggering under its debt load? I can think of a lot better uses for that billion.  Are we really willing to contribute that amount?

I’m going to watch as the campaigns heat up.  I’m not going to like what I see.  It will begin in earnest Wednesday morning when the spin doctors for the various campaigns make known their rationale for losing or staying in the race when chances of success are nil.

Wishful thinking?  Hope springs eternal?  Or one more sign of hypocrisy.  I worry about the ability of a person to govern when they can’t face their own truths.  Never-the-less, the show must go on. Soon enough it will be curtains for someone.  I just hope it isn’t us.  Wishful thinking?  Yep.  Pessimism? Absolute.