So much of the so called political debate in this country is of a very low standard.

Ideologues on both ends of the political spectrum trot out the same tired talking points – everybody’s screaming – nobody’s listening – and the resulting stew is seasoned with ramblings of the lunatic fringe.

In advocacy politics, truth is sacrificed in favor of impact and mind share. The political game is all about winning elections and good governance falls by the wayside.

Sports metaphors abound. Election campaigns are covered like races where the candidate’s stamina counts for more than the content of their policies. After any debate or major speech, we have the inevitable post-game show. We cheer as our candidate lands a particularly nasty punch (in the form of a negative ad campaign) the opposition. We reward the candidate that buys the most TV spots even as we decry the influence that large campaign contributors have on the our elected representatives.

I’m reading “Things Worth Fighting For” by Michael Kelly and after I started writing this post, I started reading the section of this book entitled “The Game.” He describes the rules of the game far better than I ever will and in far more depth.

I just want to say that it’s a dangerous game we play.

1. Instead of building a bi-partisan strategy for dealing with the rise of Islamic Militancy, we focus on whether or not Bush Lied.
2. Rather than focusing on where we go from here in Iraq, we debate the wisdom of our invasion. Sorry sports fans - that boat has sailed.
3. We could be trying to solve the health care crisis in this country but instead, we debate gay marriage.
4. Our “balance” of trade with China is imbalanced and getting worse, Mean while, China supports our profligate lifestyle by buying up two billion dollars of our national debt every day. Meanwhile, both the president and congress spend like there’s no tomorrow.
5. Our public education system is an unmitigated disaster that in too many districts fails to educate half of the incoming kindergartners to a 10^th grade level in reading and an 8^th grade level in math. How do we fix this? We try to force intelligent design into the science curriculum and we allow the teacher’s unions to protect both incompetence and abuse.
6. Long after the Bush administration’s fumblings and the attacks by Democrats have faded from our public consciousness, the people of New Orleans continue to suffer.

I could go on. The list is long and many problems have been on the list for years, even decades.

In a political system where perception is reality, the good works of government need go no farther than the photo-op. Promises are made or a bill is introduced but once the lights go down and the news trucks drive away, most of the benefits have already accrued to the once and future candidate. The perception becomes reality with the evening news and next year’s campaign literature will list today’s event as an example of the candidate’s ongoing struggle on behalf of his constituents. If the bill dies in committee or the executive branch fails to implement its provisions, so be it. The pictures remain.

This is an admittedly cynical view of government. I own that as my opinion. I also realize that many, if not most, of our elected representatives sometimes, even often, are striving to do what they think is the right thing. But there is a name for candidates who put good governance ahead of good politics. They’re called private citizens.

The fault lies with us. As long as we expect nothing better from our government; as long as we accept well crafted perception as reality; as long as we believe that politics is about the players and not about policies - we will get the government we deserve.

I’ll have no doubt that I will find myself defending the president on this blog more than I want to (see Why I’d Love to be a Democrat and How George Lost the War) only because the president, no matter what his party affiliation, is always the lightening rod for attacks. This is how the game is played. This was how the game was played when Bill Clinton was in office.

My only hope is that someday we will tire of this game take the time and energy to hold our candidates and elected representatives to a higher standard based on the actions they take to resolve the many problems that our nation faces.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 at 5:08 am and is filed under 1_Left, 3_Right. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.