Read a brilliant column by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone yesterday in which he savagely attacks the whole election process for the time wasted, the money spent and the unending hype produced. He goes on to advocate that the whole thing be whittled down to six weeks, with almost no money spent and TV exposure being entirely supported by time donations from the networks.
In concept, I agree entirely, but how would that actually work for the candidates? It might have worked for Obama, although it would have severely limited his ability to come back from inept TV debates. One bad debate with no time lapse for an apologia would have made it tough sledding for the President, but that’s nothing to the problem that it would have caused Romney. With only six weeks the challenger would have had almost no time, after presenting one platform to his base, to turn it around and present an entirely different one to the general public. I mean, it takes time to flip-flop. It takes even more time to strategize how to make the twin lies palatable to both sides.
Back to Obama’s point of view, it would make it very difficult for his people to figure out which set of lies Romney was going to stay with, that is, which group, base or general public, he was eventually going to betray and to come up with a strategy that exposed the lies and coddled the betrayed group over to the President’s side.
Of course, in Romney’s favor, the short time span would greatly favor his twin lie strategy in that it would leave less time for Obama to expose and refute them.
Yes, I agree with everything Taibbi said about cutting the process short but it might give a decided advantage to the candidate that lies the most because it would take away time from the other candidate’s platform just to refute those lies. We know all politicians twist the truth but do we really want a blatant liar to be in the White House for four years.
What the Republicans fail to see, is that there is a difference between twisting the truth or making an election promise that one cannot fulfill and actually lying about facts in evidence and irrefutable numbers. Saying that you will create jobs and not being able to do it, is not a lie. It is a failure, for whatever reason, to accomplish a task. We all face that sometime in our lifetime. Saying that you will tax the rich, when you have no intention of doing that is a lie.
For those who do not understand semantics, that is the difference between a lie and a broken promise. It comes down to whether you want to be led by a man that you know you can’t trust, a man who has repeatedly lied to you, or by a man who has thus far not succeeded in an important task but is willing to keep trying. I’m glad you made the right decision. I really think it bodes well for the country and maybe with Obama back for another four years we can tackle some of the real problems that face us as a country. Changing the electoral process, in many different ways is certainly one of them.