Candidate Bashing; America’s Favorite Pasttime.

Recently, hidden amongst the usual candidate carnage of mud-slinging, I found a refreshing change of pace, a commercial message from a political candidate who did nothing but promote himself. He did not sling any mud, or make any references whatsoever to any other candidate. He simply stated what his political plan was, and left it at that. I say, kudos to the fellow who refused to get into the brawl! Seventy times a day we are forced to watch or listen to political verbal bashing that is getting way too far out of hand. If you want to watch television at all, the mute button on your remote is probably the only thing saving you from a guaranteed nervous breakdown.

I wonder what would happen on voting day if all the candidates used the one man’s technique and simply promoted themselves to the public, the way campaigning should be? I would bet that there would be a much greater turn-out at the voting booths, and a lot fewer undecided votes. Probably more people would be willing to stand up and be counted at the polling places, fully understanding their candidates and the issues they represent. Yeah, I know…That’ll be the day.

I am not bashing Democrats with this writing, nor am I uplifting my own Republican party, because both have their black stains of error and/or incompetence. What I am bashing is the bashing itself, and the political correctness that seems so overbearingly common in this day and age. As recently as fifty years ago or so, women were rarely seen in political situations, and never holding a position as important as the Governorship. I have always wondered if the world was even ready yet for a woman in political office. I’m certainly not against women, after all, I am one, but I have noticed in a lot of cases that the women who hold important political offices are frequently held in higher suspicion than their male counterparts.

My state has a woman Governor, and her gender alone does not condemn her in my eyes, but the past four years of her Governorship has, since she has not performed well. She is a democrat, and this also does not condemn her, but her way of doing business does. Thousands of jobs have been lost in my state since she came into office. Perhaps this is not her fault, but she is the person in command of the state, and as such she should have been listening to the voters and feeling their pain at least a little bit. Instead, she has ignored the voters in favor of the democratic hardline. She allowed the building of a new prison facility in this state, then just a very short time later, closed it down in order to save the state money. Meanwhile, that prison was one of the biggest employers in its area.