All Issues, all the Time: December 2012 prompt

As Congress wrestles with end-of year budget negotiations and newly elected members of the House and Senate prepare to take their seats next month, this month seems like a good time to think critically about the outcome of the November 2012 election.  In fact, you've been doing that in your analytical write-up of the competitive Congressional race you followed this fall.  Now it's time to take your analytical skills to the next level.

To that end, consider the lessons that elected officials (Democrats, Republicans, and Independents) should draw from the election.  What were the voters saying on November 6?  What are the issues most vital to the nation?  Why?  If you were advising the nation's leaders, what would you tell them?

When it is all said and done, political parties must take positions on ideas and policies.  So think of this question in terms of issues (jobs, immigration, social issues) and not political parties.  

Voters: The Latest Scientific Breakthrough? I Think Not.

by Justin Paley

The micro-targeting of voters has become a phenomenon among politicians these days. Anyone out there who thinks there vote in meaningless, you’re wrong. Politicians are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get you out to the voting booth as expressed in an article in the New Yorker by James Surowiecki. This aspect of politics has been especially prevalent in this election as the margin of victory is expected to be very slim. Both Romney and Obama are using data collected by their campaigns to convince certain people to vote for them by airing television ads and other digital attacks. One example of this in recent elections was the 2004 race between George W. Bush and John Kerry.  Kerry’s campaign concluded that golfers were more likely to vote for Bush then Kerry, so the Kerry campaign aired ads on the Golf Channel. I think this strategy is smart but has undermined the intellectuality of political campaigns and has taken it one step to far.

If George Washington or Thomas Jefferson saw what the candidates were doing in this election, they would be rolling over in their graves. The way politicians are campaigning these days really disgusts me. Yes, I do think that using data about voters and their tendencies is a smart idea, but the way it is being used is just one step to far for me. This presidential campaign is expected to be the most expensive ever, with spending expected to reach around one billion dollars. One thing that I found interesting is an NPR article we listened to in class a few days ago about battle ground spending. NPR concluded that candidates are spending about $1,000 per person in battle ground states. Are you kidding me? And what bothers me the most is that all of these ads on both sides are just saying bad things about the other candidate. This whole election has just taken it to far between it’s spending, attacks and also the fact that candidates switch their political views every other day to appeal to a different type of voter. This country was founded on strong beliefs and passions. These days, political candidates switch their views more times then we hear about big bird and binders!

This whole digital information age has been blown out of proportion. You would think that we’re finding the cure of some deadly disease with the amount of money that’s put into such tedious and specific research on voters. Political campaigns should be about the candidate. Not attacking the other one or switching your image every other day. I feel as though these days, politics is only about winning and not about staying true to what you really believe in. Yes, winning is an important part obviously, but you should not sacrifice your integrity in order to do so. And using all these micro-targeting strategies, spending billions of dollars on digital ads and telling the people what they want to hear even if it’s not what you believe does just that. It’s not about whose the best candidate anymore, it’s about who has the most money to spend and says the right thing at the right time.