Post-Convention (Democratic) Thoughts

Well, I was inspired. I want to go out and canvas my neighborhood and go to a rally and put a sign in my front yard (Homeowners Association permission, please). I'm kind of an emotional guy, so all the speeches and videos and music tend to cause tears to well up in my eyes and I get goose bumps - these presentations are designed for people like me. But so are the Budweiser commercials with the Dalmatian and the Clydesdale and the Rocky theme. That doesn't mean that I've converted to Republican or Libertarian - they use the same tactics. What I'm trying to say is that the electoral process has degenerated over the years to a huge ad campaign. Like the Olympics. Heart-breaking stories of politicians (athletes, horses) overcoming great odds (prison camps, single parent upbringing, flooded gymnasiums, horse colic?) to become the candidates of their parties (gold medal winner, pulling the beer truck) and reap great rewards like book deals or Nike contracts or Viagra ads.

I guess we'll never have another Lincoln-Douglas debate. Not enough sound bites. No pundits to immediately comment on the speeches to tell us what they really said and what we should believe (and when did we start using this term, pundit, to describe anyone with name recognition or a loud voice and an opinion about a candidate or issue? I thought it was used to describe a scholar or sage.) Can you imagine a forum where the candidates laid out their respective positions on issues in full sentences - paragraphs, even. And we get to judge their positions without other people interpreting them for us. And maybe just in print or on the radio so we don't get to see their height or weight or make-up or skin color or perspiration on their upper lips or five o'clock shadow (not that I'd want Nixon to defeat Kennedy!)

But my main point is that we have created another industry in this country - the election industry. Can you imagine the economic impact of all of the election processes starting at local elections and working up to the every four year presidential cycle? The ad revenues from print and TV, the pollsters, the "pundits", the news teams, the printers and everything else that goes into this process. It's an amazing phenomenon in this country, this creation of "industries". We did it with the "War on Drugs" and "Homeland Security" and a whole industry built around criminal incarceration and, of course, the most famous industry of all, the "Defense Industry" or should we call it the "Offense Industry" or the "Arms Supply Industry". What happens is that we become so dependent on these industries for our livelihoods, that we can never get rid of them.

Which brings us to the Republican Convention. I can't wait!