America Decides. Since when?

I just finished building a snowman with my twins, which means I built a snowman and they cheered me on. They have very different styles so there was a diversity of support. Building a snowman is an act that saps one of all cynicism. It's just difficult to see the negative when a 6' 3" frozen statue is smiling down on you with his crooked grin. But I'll fight through that.

We are again in the season of electing a President, which like most holidays and the NBA regular season and playoffs is much longer than it need be. Candidates are out campaigning, honing their stump speech, deflecting attempts by opponents to define them in a negative light and gaining more pounds than Britney on a downswing. The 24 hour media cycle embraces this with enough vigor to allow Jon Stewart to extend to a full hour. Through it all, we are expected to believe Americans of voting age and without felony convictions are actually making up their minds.

However, the method of campaigning itself undermines this premise. Campaigns work hardest at raising money to air commercials and hire consultants to assist in spinning the latest topic. Almost without fail, polling numbers shift in direct proportion to the number of commercials they are exposed to and the bent of the media sources they listen to. I hesitate at pluralizing "sources" since most people don't get beyond one and, if they do, they don't get beyond one political orientation. You read the New York Post and then go home and watch Fox News in a virtual piling-on of biased information.

Perhaps I would have more faith in the ability of Americans to make an informed decision if, to this day, some of them didn't still believe Iraq had a hand in 9/11. Just because the Vice President said it, and repeated it and threw it in even after the President had finally admitted it wasn't true, doesn't make it true. Yet, some people still buy it or worse find comfort in it for our actions since. Marketers, like politicians rely on this pliability and the success of the Thigh Master is proof positive that some of us shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

So as we move towards a Democratic nominee and Ralph Nader decides if he should scuttle that candidate’s chances of winning, we await the Swift Boat to pull along side and turn the election. Afterwards we’ll shake our heads and wonder how it happened all the while in a state of denial of how the system works in the first place.

I think I’ll put back on my Goretex and build an igloo.