This isn’t actually true if we’re speaking about presidential elections generally and Mitt Romney and Barak Obama specifically, I want it to be true. Campaigns aren’t based on who has the better facts, but who has the better sounding lies. When it comes to lying, no one can possibly hope to compete with Mitt. He’s got a natural ability that is probably of a pathological nature. In fact, he lies and flip-flops so much it’s actually impossible for passive voters to possibly keep up with them all. With the skewed way our election system has become, most voters fall permanently into two camps (Right and Left) the only people up for play are the ones without any firm ideology or depth of thought. (Obviously this is a generalization, as there are some of the indecisive electorate that probably do see Republican’s and Democrats as simple a choice between two evils the majority of this swayable electorate that the lies and emotional advertising is keyed towards are not you. ) Because of the nature of the electoral college process, whereby margins of victory are irrelevant and all votes are assigned to a victor even if they win less than 50% of a state’s vote, the chances a third-party candidate prevails in a run a for th presidency are essentially non-existent. At most, a third-party candidate can change the discourse and alter the outcome in favor of the party they are least like (Most recent notable cases were Ross Perot in 1992 which swung the election in favor of Clinton and Ralph Nader in 2000 who swung the election in favor of mini-Bush)
Because only a small sliver of the electorate can be swayed by advertising (at best you can hope to persuade the left and right to stay home or come out, not alter their actual selection – the sides are too far apart for that to work) and that electorate doesn’t pay much attention to the issues in the first place, Republicans have learned that they can lie as much as they like to. The more outrageous lies and the more often the better. The population they are trying to reach is far more likely to see the lie and act upon it, than they are to see the rebuttal or truth. If to rebut the lie one has to look at historical documents, or anything with a number on it you’re home free! As i said before, this is a generalization. There will be some independents, usually younger voters without staunchly conservative parents, who haven’t made up their minds who will start paying attention and recognize the lies for what they are, and be justifiably pissed. They will likely vote for “the other guy” if their lies are less egregious. Unfortunately there are far fewer of this type of voter than there are the ones that are independent because they are too busy, too uneducated, or just don’t give shit. Those are the gold nuggets that must be exposed by a good campaign advertising campaign and enticed to finally vote. To do that you have to get them fired up. Tell them Obama is a secret muslim. (not that this should be a negative for an informed american but lets remember our audience) Imply he’s not a US citizen. Spread ridiculous rumors about his staff and the Muslim Brotherhood. Show linkages to foreign interests like Greek George Soros and imply Obama has made secret deals with communists (Uh, don’t mention that whole Australian Rupert Murdoch thing, Fox News and his media empire aren’t that influential are they?)
Many of you may remember the “swiftboat veterans for truth” funded by a texas billionaire to spread anything but during the John Kerry Bush election? This was when Republicans discovered they could take something like multiple war medals for valor and bravery and hang them around a candidate like an albatross of shame. while their own candidate actually evaded the Vietnam war. I don’t blame Bush for not fessing up about his own transgressions though, he was probably just drunk or high on cocaine on one of his AWOL episodes from the national guard to remember much from those years.
So what’s my point? Simply this, election results are determined by the uninformed and easily misinformed. Candidates campaign in small Podunk towns in Ohio and Florida because they have so much data on voting results they can count most Republicans and Democrats (Conservatives and Liberals) as solidly in their corner or out of play. That allows them to ignore little things like nationwide issues and truth in favor of appealing sounding lies about who’s got more traditional muslim sounding names and ethanol subsidies (which most people in both parties outside of Iowa realize are a waste of money and harmful to the environment.)
Disband the electoral college. Force campaigns and presidents to talk to all of us, not just the ignorant or geographically relevant few. Mitt is the biggest liar right now, but if this strategy proves succesful I’m not naive enough think the Democrats won’t emulate it. When we only reward our politicians for lying to us, you know who we have to blame when they screw us over. Maybe this will make it possible for a runoff and third-party candidate to actually prevail. They could talk to the people the major candidates ignore and maybe finally some other voices could be heard.
The politicians and the electorate
The story concerns a farmer who finds a viper freezing in the snow. Taking pity on it, he picks it up and places it within his coat. The viper, revived by the warmth, bites his rescuer, who dies realizing that it is his own fault.
