POLITICAL TEMPO
For several weeks I have been wondering about the current presidential election campaign. I’ve had a strange feeling of concern about something being amiss, or of a change that is taking place of which we are not yet fully aware..
I have come to feel, more and more, that it has to do with the timing of the events sol the campaign. I was not the first to question how it came to be that the candidates are using materials which have been, traditionally, retained for use in the final days and hours of the confrontation when there is insufficient time for rebuttal against some of the campaign charges and counter-claims. Issues a personal nature are usually withheld until the late hours of the campaign, but Kerry; questioning George Bush's presence at his National Guard post during the Viet Nam war. Bush set forth official papers including medical reports, and Kerry has yet to do so concerning his wartime activities. He did this far too early in the sequence of planned events, some seem to think. It appears that Kerry’s post-participation in public activism with anti-war groups might well be held for use later on. To embark on that phase of the plans too soon would be risky and it would lose much of its potential value for the GOP.
Why would the campaign seem to get ahead of itself in this manner?
It is, I think, something which runs deeper in our society than the surface of political activities. It is affecting other segments of our national life, and we find ourselves beset with social issues such as “gay marriage laws” and “Under God” motto restrictions. We went at them without definitive investigation and such under study results have been “mixed” at best. It seems, to me, to be connected to with our exceptionally strong advances in the art of communications.
Television, alone. Has revolutionized our political life beyond our ability function well within the old tried-and-true – and often narrow – confines with which we currently have to deal. The use of television in our political campaign has made it totally meaningless for us to have more than a year ahead of the actual Election Day devoted to campaigning. Political actions are faster today.. Where candidates used to require months to get speak to even a small portion of the populace, he can now do in days. By cutting the excessive length of our election time we can avoid voter burn-out which has occurred this year with many voters turning their attention to other concerns such as the War Against Terrorism. Shortening the campaigning period could also help the media do an even more commedable job of reporting. The present elongated system encouyages repetition and the media has been awash in a sea of re-writes, re-runs and deadly use of the same old film clips and snippets.
Our national well being could be even more enhanced if we could be a assured of in depth reforms of our educational system to re-instate the teaching of the history of the United States of America. To secure our future we must have a new generation of qualified, youthful voters being prepared to be better citizens than many of us have been.
We have been alerting to our need for reform by a series of events taking place all around us.
How much longer do we dare wait?
A. L. M. March 24, 2004 [c586wds]
