Ruth Ann Daily’s article on Harrisburg Leeches
Ruth Ann Daily, a columnist for the Post-Gazette, has hit the nail on the head. Read her article here.
I generally don’t like the dehumanizing nature of politics - where we make our opponents out to be evil incarnate or nothing better than ameobas that are ready to be squashed.
Unfortunately though, Daily’s article is accurate. She hasn’t dehumanized anyone - merely made a connection with what has been going on. Part of the blam lies on the elected officials doing the leeeching and the other part lies with the voters who have been apathetic up until the 2005 pay raise.
SOmeone once said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilence. It is apparent that no one was vigilent and so we reap what we sow. Let us learn the lessons that we need to from the past and move forward.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Negative campaigning has to be easily the biggest complaint from voters anywhere. The problem is that without it, you campaign against your opponent on the platform that he isn’t really such a bad guy. Then why vote for you instead of him? It’s a lose/lose.
Although most often villified, Karl Rove came up with the most ingenious strategy to counter that complaint. Rove fully believes that 50% of campaign effort should be spent on attack, but by attacking opponent’s strengths instead of weaknesses. Making people second guess what they thought was a good thing might not be perfect, but it puts an end to tne mudslinging of personal politics.
February 17th, 2007 at 8:35 am
I never mentioned negative campaigning - I was talking about dehumanizing your opponent - that’s different. Negative campaigning in my mind is desparate campaigning whereby you lie about your opponent. What you are talking about is telling the voters truthfully why your opponent doesn’t belong in office - whether that be based on votes, or whatever they have actaully done. That’s not negative campaigning - it’s only negative by way of the fact that what the person actually did was negative and you are merely pointing it out. That’s the job of a campaign.