political overload

I made it a goal to follow politics more closely in this election year. I don't think a majority of voters base their votes on any kind of knowledge and I may have been guilty of that in the last election. So I decided that if I were to vote again I would make sure that I had a good understanding of the candidates before making my decision. Recently I have found myself in an odd place when it comes to my thoughts on current politics.

I am completely burned out.

Some of it has to do with the media stories that have gotten attention (or haven't) and the fact that every recent story seems to make me disgusted that I even follow any of this crap. Some examples:

Hilary Rosen, a democratic political adviser, made a comment that Mitt Romney should not base political decisions on advice from his wife Ann because she "had not worked a day in her life".

The backlash revolved around the fact that Ann chose to be a stay at home mom while raising her 5 children and that being a mother is the hardest job in the world. Understandable.....but a lot of mothers (and fathers), many being single parents, are faced with these same burdens in addition to working part or full time jobs. Instead of focusing the attention on the point Rosen was trying to make, the Democratic Party instantly disowned her and the Republicans immediately tried to paint Rosen as queen of all democratic decision making. This atricle compares the Rosen "gaffe" to comments made by Rush Limbaugh weeks ago. The way attention is intentially diverted is comical, yet sad at the same time. How many times can hey look, something shiny! continue to work?

I think the media has the biggest influence on public opinion. This is evident by the way the Republican candidates leading the race switched on an almost weekly basis for a few months before Mitt Romney finally grabbed hold of the lead. Since that time nearly every story has focused on Romney or Rick Santorum.

Well that makes sense since they were the frontrunners right?

Wrong.

As much as I disagree with Newt Gingrich and as much as I think I like Ron Paul, I think it is a shame the lack of media attention they have gotten. I'm not sure if it is because they are less interesting or people feel they know them already because they have been around longer, but nonetheless it is a shame. The media has the control of making people popular or not, just by having their name out there. Just look at the Kardashians.

I think a lot of things can be summed up by a quote from the movie The Adjustment Bureau.

".....But here's the problem, this isn't even my tie. This tie was selected for me by a group of specialists, in Tenafly New Jersey, who chose it over fifty six other ties we tested. In fact, our data su...suggests that I have to stick to either a tie that is red or a tie that is blue. A yellow tie made it look as if I was taking my situation lightly and I may in fact pull my pants down at any moment. A silver tie meant that I'd forgotten my roots. My shoes, you know shiny shoes we associate with a high priced lawyers and bankers. If you want to get a working mans vote you need to scuff up your shoes a little bit, but you can't scuff 'em so much that you alienate the lawyers and the bankers, cause you need them to pay for the specialist back in Tenafly."

Yeah it's just a movie, but although exaggerated (I hope), the point is probably valid.

The way that every sentence spoken, every tie worn, every speech, every thought, belief, opinion, friend, or adviser seeme to be chosen specifically to earn more votes than the other person is crazy. I don't know if others feel the same way, but the more I feel like my vote is being bought or manipulated the more it makes me not want to vote. They say poor voter turnout is a bad thing, but I think an embarrassingly low voter turnout could be good. It would cause politicians to rethink the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaigning and media persuasion, and actually take a look at why people don't vote as much anymore.

Maybe we just get burned out.