An Open Letter to Our Nation's Politicians

Dear idiots:

Could you please stop it? No, seriously, cut it out. I'm so sick and tired of seeing ad after ad on my TV blasting one candidate after another. I'm tired of the different voices that they use: the "I can't believe this candidate is so silly to think we won't notice all of his faults" voice; the "If I talk to you very slowly, perhaps you'll get the gravity of what I'm saying to you about how evil this person and their ideas are" voice; and, my personal favorite, the "If we speak to you [you] with an over-lapping echo [echo] in every sentence [sentence] - or perhaps every noun [noun] - we [we] will get our point [point] across." The last one is best accomplished with a deep male voice echoed by a female voice on the alto side of pitch, for those of you aspiring ad executives in the audience [audience]. Sorry. I got caught up in the ad.

Stop all of these ads that say nothing about you and only bad things about your opponent. It seems as though every ad for an incumbent is talking about how you've "gone Washington." This makes me wonder how people in Seattle respond to this. ("Add the 'D.C.'! Add the 'D.C.'!") Simultaniously, I wonder what the ads in the District of Columbia say about the incumbents. ("Looks like Bill Doberman has gone mid-west!") I don't care what your opinion of your opponent is. I want to know where you stand on issues. That's really it. The best part about it is when an attack ad is chastising the opposing candidate for running attack ads. It's like two dogs chasing each others' tails. You know one of them will eventually "win," but both end up looking completely foolish in the process.

The only thing, in my opinion that these ads actually accomplish is completely demotivating the moderates from voting so that the entire election will not be decided by the voice of the majority, but by the voice of which side has more zealots. Or at the very least, more zealous cheaters. Is that what we want the country to become? Everyone complains about the corruption in Washington ("Add the 'D.C.'! Add the 'D.C.'!"), but no one seems to want to do anything about it. The American public doesn't want to vote. I believe that it's due in part to these ads that make all of you look evil, but there's no one who's not evil on the ballot.

One of the things that I've noticed about these ads is that they're really starting to target one of the main voting demographics: the elderly. So many of the ads are talking about how their Social Security will be threatened by this candidate or that one, or that they won't be able to get their medications, or that immigrants will help the terrorists keep them from being able to watch Wheel of Fortune.

Part of the problem with all of you candidates, for whatever office, is that you want to be there. You want to be part of the culture that is constantly giving yourselves pay raises. It doesn't matter on which side of the aisle you're found. One side had a president that lied to the American people and literally made the statement, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." The other side is currently dealing with a scandal about a congressman propositioning former congressional pages. The fact of the matter is that you want to be there. I want one of you to run a campaign in which you say some positive things about your opponent and have the guts to have your ads focus only on your qualifications, what you bring to the table and where you stand on the issues. Even if I disagree with you on the issues, at least you'd have my respect, which is significantly more than any of the present-day candidates have.

Here's my solution: Until such time as I am old enough to run for president (slogan: "Hey, he's better than what we've got. We hope."), I'm going to be voting randomly for candidates. This way, while we will still have people who want to be in office, at least you will be randomly selected. Am I serious about this? No, but it helped to vent a bit.

So, there you have it. This is my letter, my plea, my challenge to you, the politicians of this nation: run a positive campaign. Stop deluging us with ads, especially the silly echo [echo] commercials [commercials].

Sincerely,

Jeff Kamp
Registered Voter