A Long Dry Spell

It’s been a long dry spell for writing. Of all times to get a block: A few days from an election, and just as I have been invited to contribute to a news and commentary Web site (more on that later). But I think it’s the election, or rather the campaign, that’s to blame. I’m just fed up with the political atmosphere. The vitriol, the distortions, the finger pointing, the name-calling, and the dirty tricks … it’s all just too much.

Being slightly conservative, I am more aware of the crap from the Left, although I know intuitively that the Right does it, too.

Negative campaigning rules the day. Once one candidate employs negative ads, his or her opponent has little choice but to respond in kind. The result is that the American voter is attacked by a barrage of negative ads devoid of discussion of relevant and important issues. Is it any wonder, then, that we have the people we have in elected office?

Perhaps worse than the negative ads is the silly stuff that gets blown completely out of all proportion as if some of it is really relevant. Worse still is that so many Americans fall for it.

Blessedly it will all be over in a little more than two weeks. Then maybe things will settle down. Instead of Democrats and Republicans attacking each other in 435 House districts and in the states where one-third of the Senate seats are being contested, it will just be the usual mindless bashing of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove.

Final comment on the election: The Republicans have done nothing to deserve being kept in the majority in the House and Senate, but the Democrats have done nothing to deserve replacing them.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Dirty Politics, Negative Campaigning, Republicans, Democrats