Spinning out of control

The Associated Press reported today that the Democratic and Republican candidates spent $94,000,000 dollars in August. That’s $94 MILLION dollars in one month. What did they spend over half of this money on? Advertising. Here’s a quote from that AP report:
“Their campaign finance reports, filed before Saturday's midnight deadline, shows that more than half of their $3-million-a-day spending rate was devoted to advertising that became increasingly negative during the month.”

Once again the American political process devolves to a mud-slinging process. The winner is the one with the best spin and the most convincing lies. I sometimes wonder how the rest of the world views us. I’d wager they are having a good laugh at us.

Considering the shape our economy is in I suppose that I should be glad that there is all this money flowing around. They are keeping advertising agencies, television stations, radio stations, and print media employees from loosing their jobs. They even have their own well-paid staffers. Obama has a monthly payroll of $2.8 million and McCain has a $1.2 million payroll. Glad to know that there are still some people with jobs. Maybe I should have gone to work for one of them.

What really worries me thought is that when it comes time to vote the average American won’t have a clue who they are really voting for. Instead they will vote for the one with the best advertising and the candidate with the best spin doctors that money can buy. This country is facing some very serious and potentially catastrophic problems. We should be asking the candidates hard questions about what they will do to fix these problems. Instead it’s all sound-bytes and spin.

For those who might be curious about the truth and lies in what our candidates are saying I recommend the following sites:

• The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
• National Public Radio, Election 2008
• Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan guide to money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy
• CNN Political Fact Check, located towards the bottom of the page

Beware though, many sites that profess to provide nothing but the facts are in truth just putting their own spin out on the Internet. Which is, unfortunately, why I am not able to recommend more sites.

Lastly, if you would like to try your own hand – and maybe land a good job with a political candidate – at spin, check out this how-to site at eHow.

2008 Presidential Candidates

Last week I wrote about how disinterested I am in the national elections this year. This got me to thinking about who the candidates are and what choices we really have. For good or bad, the only candidates with a real chance of actually winning are the Democratic and Republican (I did that alphabetically only with no intended implication of one being better than the other) candidates. However, they aren’t the only guys running for our highest office. I did some checking and was really surprised at how many people were vying for the job. Vote Smart has the full list, check it out here.

Because the popular vote does not determine the winner in the Presidential election (it’s all done by the Electoral College) it is pretty useless to vote for anyone other than one of the two main candidates. The absolute best person for the office could be running under some other party and they have virtually no chance of winning the election, even if they get the most [popular] votes.

How does someone win the election? All they need is 270 Electoral College votes. It’s that simple. And you thought your vote mattered! Eight years ago we had an election where the popular vote went to one person and the office went to the other. Check out this link to find out what the current standings are.

Still want to vote for one of the two main candidates? Not sure which one? Take the quiz at the Washington Post to see which one of them is closest to you on important issues.

Does my vote count?

The presidential election year is upon us: newspapers, TV news, talk-show radio, and – for those states where their vote counts – TV commercials and signs all over the place. Politicians, their staff and volunteers are all out trying to get your vote, and your mailbox is full of flyers telling you why one person is better than all the rest. To support all of this an unbelievable amount of money will be raised and spent in this race for the White House, by one estimate almost $1 billion total!

One thing is different for this election: some states are being “punished” by the Democratic and/or Republican National Committees because they decided to hold their primary too soon. If you are a Democratic and live in Florida or Michigan your vote won’t count. If you are a Republican living in Iowa you face the same fate. The Republicans also took away one half of the votes of people living in Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Wyoming. This doesn’t mean that you can’t vote, but rather that there will either be no delegates or only a few delegates at the convention for your state. Confused? Read this article from The New York Sun about the whole mess.

All in all this makes me kind of mad. The political parties want us to contribute to them, they want us to vote, and then they decide to punish us. I didn’t decide to move my state’s election date up, I was quite happy with it where it was. I’ve had little faith in how much my vote counts on the national scale in the past and now I have no faith at all.

I still haven’t decided what to do on “election” day, at least as far as the national side of it is concerned. There are local and state issues that I will vote on, but since I have been disenfranchised by my National Committee why should I vote for one of their candidates? Maybe I’ll do a write-in candidate for someone I know or pick a popular TV celebrity. If you live in Florida you should read this newspaper article where they say your vote will probably have some “impact” even if it doesn’t count. Another Florida article says that the news agencies will mostly ignore Florida. Interesting considering what happened in 2000.

One nice thing though, since I live in a state that is being punished I am enjoying the fact that my mailbox is not full of junk, yards and street corners are not cluttered by signs, and best of all I don’t have to watch any of those campaign sound bite commercials!