Because of the primaries, we’ve received a lot of polling phone calls to find out how we intend to vote. I’m pretty sure it’s not my duty as an American to answer them, but depending on my mood, I might.
Last night, I got an interesting one. “If the primary were held tonight, whom would you vote for?” I gave an answer. “Who would be your second choice?” I gave a different answer.
So far so good. Now we get into the fun:
“Please answer the following statements with whether these would make you more or less likely to vote for {name of candidate.}”
Oh-kay….
“Candidate has said in the past that he would {take specific action on a specific political issue.}”
So far, so good.
“Candidate has the following voting record.”
Still fair.
“Candidate belongs to a religion that until 1647 believed in eating cute little puppies.”
Huh?
“Candidate said in 1978 that he believed in {whatever political stance} but last year the candidate voted for {opposite stance.}”
Because no one ever changed his mind in the course of 29 years, right? In 1978, for the record, Battle of the Planets was in its first run, Star Wars was a brand-new movie, and any article of clothing without eight colors, one being orange, was unfashionable. Oh, and in 1978, I still believed in the tooth fairy, so I’m okay with changing your mind once every three decades.
But wait–there’s more:
“Candidate’s children have done the following awful hideous no-good very-bad things.”
We must be voting the candidate’s offspring into office as well as the candidate’s entire religion! Who knew?
“Opponents of the Candidate have pointed out that he flip-flops on his voting record, his shoes smell like feet, he uses conditioners tested on animals, he pulls the feathers from sweet little songbirds, his landscapers employ ex-convicts, he uses the poor as his footrest and has no real convictions about anything whatsoever.”
That list actually went on for about three minutes. I’ve truncated it to save space.
I said, “I’d be more likely to vote for him.”
The woman conducting the survey stopped. “MORE likely?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Anyone they’re going that far out of their way to villify has got to be a pretty formidable opponent, so I’d take a closer look at him afterward.”
“Oh.”
I added, “This is a really one-sided, nasty survey.”
She replied, “You’re not the first to say that.”
I’m not sure which would have been better–to have discontinued the survey or to have continued giving answers that messed with the result-talliers heads. What do you think?
Politics has become very frustrating for me. Not so much as the name calling negative stuff(normal for a campaign), but for me…no one is willing stand on principle and common sense and defend the programs they stand for.
For example, on the Iraq War. In January 2007, the Democrats came into power stating that they would bring the troops home. (Forget how I stand about this, being a conservative and for the war.) Ok, fine. I get that. But the way politics works, you can’t just say on the first day of the session of Congress, “We are introducing a bill defunding the entire Iraqi Freedom, and the immediate withdrawal of all US Troops from Iraq.” That would be too easy and the plan would go down in flames.
You have to then play political games with nominees about waterboarding, attaching funding to different bills so that Bush would look like a moron, et al. Stand for what you believe in.
And don’t get me started on the so-called immigration reform bill on the Republican side. It’s sad to see that people are not seen as people, but as voting blocs.
Politics, for all intents and purposes, is a game. You have to vote for the person who supports the most of what you believe in. Which is a real sad state for me.
Welcome to the world of “push poling.” They don’t want an opinion, they want to tell you something, but they are bypassing all of the rules that control actual advertising. Sweet.
When this country was founded it was called the “great experiment”. There was no stated time limit for this experiment, but I’m not sure we’re going to see our 3rd centennial without some serious changes.
We’ve invented a system whereby nothing gets done because no one wants to let the other side succeed and everyone is pulling in different directions.
Imagine working this as a car trip. Democrat in the driver’s seat drives west. Republican in the driver’s seat turns the car around and drives east. Democrat takes over and drives west again. Ultimately we’ve spent a lot of time in the car, and burned a lot of gas, but we’ve gotten nowhere.
I agree the whole guilty by association thing is nonsense. There isn’t a human alive who can’t be caught up in that. Someone’s ancestors somewhere did something we would consider wrong today.
And then there is the idea of taking something out of context, or proportion. Opposing political forces would have said of Alexander the Great, “He’s just a baby in charge of a group of weaklings who would rather go home to their mommies than invade India.”
Thank you, Art! I knew this nonsense had to have a name. When I had her on the phone, I asked who sponsored the poll, and she said she didn’t have that information, that she just reads the questions as they come up on her screen.
Ivy, good analogy about a car with two drivers’ seats. Was there ever a time when political enemies pulled together for the sake of the nation? Because if there was, I want it back. I’m sick of bickering.
Jason, I’ve come to the conclusion that most politicians are like onions: you can cut through and there’s no core. Not like a peach, where you cut in and you encounter something hard and unmoving. I like to tell myself that in the past, people used to want to get elected in order to improve the country. Nowadays I think they want to get elected in order to get elected again.
I’m deeply cynical, deeply saddened, and I’m not sure what I can do about it.
I can’t even be involved in politics anymore, it gets me so frustrated. I volunteered in the grassroots part of a candidate last presidential election and I can’t believe how people reacted when they found out. DH forbid me from ever getting involved again because all the bickering and backstabbing that went on among people we knew, the hate email I was getting for supporting this candidate from family of friends, etc.
Keep up the blogging though – I like it.
(Oh, this is LiveLoveLearn again. I’m starting a blog here now too… sigh.)