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Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies

Contributed by: Eva Kosinski on 12/11/2007

Used to be you could go out campaigning for your favorite candidate, get the election results (for good or ill) and move on to the rest of your life, leaving the newly-elected candidate to get the job done that they were elected for. Now, as soon as the counting is done, the new campaign begins; even day-to-day work done by politicians is touted in the same manner as your average election slogan.

Since this is the case, the large-scale media outlets seem to have a bit of a problem. To keep campaign-without-end mentality functioning, there needs to be more and more tantalizing candidate-related "news" constantly feeding into the system, to keep the voters interested, and the advertisers secure in the knowledge that lots of folks are watching their ads.

So why aren't we seeing any interesting questions asked of the Presidential Candidates? Even the long-awaited youtube.com debates only contained questions that could be deftly turned aside with a quick sound bite, after assuring all of us that we would see all of America asking the questions we wanted the answers to. The questions asked were, of course, picked through for those with the most effect (positive or negative) and the most shock value. Where can they go next? How will the media manage to keep folks interested in the next election when all the pithy sound bites are used up, all the outrageous questions have been asked, and all the candidates lined up like beauty queens parading their wares?

The pundits are always busy. They have opinions (if not always facts) available 24/7, but even they are starting to sound a bit hollow. Comedians always take a few shots, and get some chuckles, and even man-on-the-street opinions are being taken, just to keep from any dead air on the subject.

Is it possible they're just hoping that by the time the election comes we'll be so bored, we won't care if election reform happened, or who counts the votes, or who the candidates are, because we'll be sick of them already (a process that usually takes at least one term in office) ?

Call me foolish, but I don't really care about the manicured questions that the candidates can fend off. I've got a bunch of questions (and I'm not the only one) that I would like to see someone have the guts to ask, and that I'd like to find a candidate or two with the mental stamina and integrity to answer. They can take as many pot shots at one another from their podiums as they want; all that tells me is that they don't have any answers for the issues that really matter, and a good attack is a lot less complicated to handle than a good defense of one's positions and character.

I want to hear candidates answer the following questions:

Why should I trust you when much of your campaign support comes from corporations? How do I know you aren't working for them and not the people?

Why should every bill be 500 pages long, and brought to a vote before anyone has a chance to read it or give the citizens an opportunity to tell their representatives what they think? How can they represent us if they don't bother to ask what we think? Have you ever tweaked the system to get the ground rules changed, or got something wedged in committee, or added unrelated pork-based amendments to a bill, or hid factual information from the public to get some issue resolved because the opposition wouldn't let you win?

Why are we even discussing sending Americans to die on foreign soil in the same campaign where candidates are talking about the sanctity of life? If life is sacred, why bomb people for political ends, or even in revenge?

Do you believe that the United States should have our policies and decisions dictated to us by committees at the UN, instead of by following the Constitution our country was founded upon?

Why are the checks and balances between the three branches of government being abandoned, allowing massive increases in executive power, and what do you plan to do to restore balance?

Why aren't our representatives happy with the same "protection" of Social Security and health insurance programs that the rest of us are forced to pay into? Why do they need a better one that costs more, paid for out of our tax dollars?

Why are so few people voting, and why do so many people believe that politicians are crooked and are not representing them?

How many times have you, in your personal life, made a balanced budget, and actually didn't overspend? How many debts do y ou carry for your campaigns, and who do you owe, and what do they think you will provide them for that money?

How much debt do you think is appropriate to pass on to our children and grandchildren (a number please, not just rhetoric)?? What conditions do we have to accept for the money that other countries loan to us?

When there is an issue of importance to one's political party, do you let partisan concerns trump loyalty to your constituents? Do you let dictates of your established religion color your decisions? Do you let lobbyists tell you how to think?

We all know that these questions will never be asked or answered. They are off limits, or they are answered by saying "my opponent did....x or y and I didn't agree."

The poor media wonks are reduced to having discussions of third grade essays on long-term political plans, and comparing the relative success of zingers, snappy comebacks and overblown hyperbole candidates throw at one another, because they don't want to ask the real questions that all of us want asked.

I think voters are sick to death of content-free. We don't want spin and we don't want evasion, and we don't want lie-to-us-to-get-elected anymore. Not paying attention has brought us into war on two fronts, an iffy, outsourced economy benefiting only those with clout, more military deaths than 9/11, thousands of walking wounded, and a host of other ills.

The only remaining question is whether it all got this way because we only wanted them to tell us what we wanted to hear. It won't cost much; it won't take long; they will be so happy we were there; there won't be any bad side-effects, we'll be able to pay it back; we've heard them all and fallen for them all. Did the Congress that has the lowest approval rating ever get elected because we believed them? Or did they get elected because we wanted simple answers, quick fixes, and comfortable white lies?

Maybe the system can't be fixed, but if we keep doing the same things we've been doing, we'll continue to be wasting our votes. Maybe this time we should try voting for the folks that *don't* tell us what we want to hear, that will actually make us do some thinking and have to make some hard decisions.

I challenge the media and all of us voters to have the courage to ask the hard questions and be ready to hear the real answers, and tell the truths from the oh-so-comforting lies. What harm can it do? Given the current state of this country, I'm pretty sure we can't do worse than we've already done, and just maybe we can make a change for the better.




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Showing 1 of 1 comments
Submitted By: Ethan Rivers
posted on 12/20/2007 @ 2:48:28 PM
(Not Rated)
Very concise, well thought and well stated.
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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Eva Kosinski

Louisville , CO

Eva Kosinski has posted 110 stories and 12 comments since joining on 12/18/2005. Eva Kosinski 's average story rating is 4.92.
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