Utica Progressive

I am becoming less and less interested in the Presidential Primaries every day.  As usual the races have digressed to personal attacks and meaningless sound bites.  This is probably the way all campaigns go, I am simply not old enough to remember that many.  I can deal with candidates being negative and I can deal with them speaking in platitudes, what irritates me the most is the lack of substance.

Sit back and listen to the news coverage of either party.  The main concern of the national media is the horse race, who is leading who in the polls.  The story is all about momentum, spin, and strategy.  Rarely do the momentum and strategy have to deal with issues that voters want to hear about.  We hear about who is surging, who is faltering and who looks and acts the most presidential.

I want to hear what each candidate has to say about the issues, health care, education, Iraq, social security.  I want analysis of where they stand so I can decide who to vote for and who to support.  Take a look at Select A Candidate, a game produced by American Public Media.  In about three minutes it will tell you which candidate most reflects your values.  My result was Kucinich with a score of 29.  That was about what I expected; I’m glad I know what I stand for.

That game is the kind of basic analysis we need from the media.  I want them to say, “If you are in favor of this kind of policy, then this should be your candidate.”  Many people don’t have the time or energy to sort through the BS and find the real policy issues, they simply consume the information available.  Give them something useful and they will make better decisions.  We can be the enlightened citizenry that the founders hoped we would be.