When the first President Bush was elected, he promised a ‘Kinder and Gentler’ America. With all due respect to #41, if he thought things were ‘Meaner and Rougher’ back then, how would he label this current political climate?
We’re just five days from Election Day 2012 and by all accounts, this is a nail-biter. If you read the left-leaning blogs and watch the ultra-liberal MSNBC, they’ll tell you their guy has it in the bag. “Not so fast,” reply the politicos on the right – on Fox News and in right-wing publications. Their guy is going to pull it out and they’ve crunched the numbers to prove it.
Throw all of that out and listen to the few neutral political scientists and see the trusted polls and they’ll tell you we’re in for a late night next Tuesday.
#cliffhanger!
In a race that is essentially50/50, I worry as much about the aftermath as I do the outcome. Remember how much hatred and venom was spewed after the 2000 election was settled?
It has become common practice in this NON ‘Kinder and Gentler’ climate to hurtle crude personal insults at your political opponent. The notion of scholarly debate has given way to cheap name calling.
Nowhere is this more evident than in chat rooms, on blogs and on your local Facebook wall. Try posting a firm political statement and see how long it takes for your friends and colleagues from across the aisle to begin casting you as a freak and an extremist. It’s really a metaphor for real world resentment…only it’s easier and more comfortable to throw stones when you’re protected by the safety of your laptop.
Recently, I teased one of my friends online about how she cancelled out my vote when we both early voted. Within a half hour, four people chided me about my choice. And, here’s the thing, by comparison, they were all good natured about it!
Politics has always been a hard-knuckle sport but at the end of the day, when one party was victorious, everyone coalesced behind the winner. Opponents shook hands and a sense of bi-partisan spirit led to good government. Now, in the modern era with the internet and 24/7 news coverage on cable (“Yelling shows,” Lisa calls it), those days are over. Gridlock reigns.
And on Tuesday, roughly half of the country is going to be disappointed when their guy loses. And the amazing thing is that, 5 days out, we just don’t know who that will be.
Here’s my call to action – to anyone who is reading; to anyone who is listening. Once the decision is final, come together; work together.
If there is anything that we’ve learned from a two-year Presidential campaign, $1B in campaign advertising, four debates and days and weeks of news coverage of Election 2012, it is that we have challenges as a nation. We have real problems that need real solutions - not slogans and sound bytes.
Those solutions won’t be easy; the decisions and debate to reach those solutions will be even harder.
We need leaders from the left and leaders from the right to work together to get this job done – from the debt and deficit to jobs and health care.
No one will hear the good ideas expressed by one side if the other side is yelling.
Be good sports when your side loses; be gracious winners when your side wins. Remember, 50/50 means the country is equally split. And you remember what President Lincoln once said about the ‘house divided.’
JG
(Source: realclearpolitics.com)
Originally posted 11/1/2012
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