Coprolite Newsletter, November 2006

One November day in 1940, my grandparents got all dressed up and drove their Model A ten miles to town so that one of them could vote for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the other for Wendell Willkie.

Now, you might think it would have been more sensible to skip voting that year as long as they were going to cancel each other out. Maybe the incident just shows that I'm not the first member of my family who excelled at failing to communicate. I'd rather think that, for second-generation Americans like my grandparents, the act of voting was in itself simply too important to miss.

Something sure has changed. Nowadays, fewer than half the registered voters bother to turn out for most elections. I think we're poorer for it, as individuals and as a society. But how can people be persuaded to make the effort?

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that voters are simply turned off by the nasty tone of campaigning these days.

Let's say that your town has just two or three restaurants, and you're trying to decide which one to go to. Restaurant A's ads don't really talk about their menu. They harp on how awful Restaurant B's meat loaf tastes, the weird personal behavior of its chef, and its supposed plans to raise its prices to exorbitant heights. Restaurant B's ads focus entirely on the legal problems of some of Restaurant A's staff, the feud they started with folks from another business in town, and the problems with salmonella and E. coli suffered by some of their clients. Restaurant C, which just opened and is relatively unknown, blasts both of the other establishments without bothering to tell you much about its own offerings.

Which restaurant would you go to? If you're like me, you'd probably rather stay home and eat leftovers than visit any of those places. In the same way, the nasty political advertising these days turns off potential voters.

Political analysts claim that, even though people don't like negative ads, parties continue to run them because they work. I beg to differ. They sure don't work with me. I started voting fifty years ago. I've voted for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. I even voted for a flamboyant former professional wrestler as governor for my state. But I'm quite sure I've never, ever, voted for the candidate who ran the most aggressive attack ads.

Just think about it for a second. The people we elect, whether it's to the City Council or the U.S. Senate, will need to be able to discuss issues with open minds and get things done in a reasonable fashion. They can't do this by bickering and screaming at each other like spoiled brats.

It stands to reason that candidates who show no civility while campaigning are not going to be adept at calling each other "my esteemed colleague" and reaching compromise agreements on controversial matters. Doesn't it follow that nasty campaigners must be inherently incompetent for the job? There certainly are a lot of candidates in that category this year.

Yet, somehow we've got to overcome our disgust and find the least objectionable person to vote for in each race. As my grandparents realized back in 1940, our taking part in the process is just as important as the outcome. I wish us luck.

––Wayne Adams
wayne@coprolites.com
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