Decision 2012: Show me the Facts

BY JOHN MACDONELL, Guest Columnist

It’s back! Every four years, it’s time for something new — a new candidate, new proposals, and above all, new policies.

You know the drill. Political ads on all the channels. Phone calls during dinner hours. New junk mail every day. When will it end? Truth is, it won’t. Too many people are influenced by these ads and politicians find them useful to get to voters.

When will voters open their eyes? In today’s election world, the candidate or proposal that is backed by the most funding usually wins. It’s widely known that this year’s two presidential candidates will have spent over one billion dollars by November.

You read that right. One billion.

It’s a sad day when a candidate has to defend his position day after day. I have a short message for the two candidates: please, just tell me what you would do to fix this economy. Tell me how you would bring jobs home.

Tell me about how to resolve the wars overseas. And above all, enough with this he said, she said nonsense. I’m getting sick of seeing political ads attacking one candidate or the other. I just simply want to hear about what YOU will do to fix this nation’s problems, not about what the other man would do differently from you. But of course, I dream.

Tell me the facts. Mr. Romney, enough with the lies about Obama’s record in the Oval Office. Mr. Obama, stop attacking Romney’s wealth. Truth be told, this nation is more interested in reading a story about Romney’s 47% gaffe than one about his record as governor. The average person would rather listen to what Obama has to say at a meeting with Jay-Z than about what he says on the campaign trail. That is what we’ve come to.

Whether people like to admit it or not, we are at war. Our economic recovery has been severely slow. We have unrest in the Middle East as well as here at home. College grads worry about finding work. 401Ks are disappearing while gas prices and credit card debt are increasing. We’re living in the midst of a crisis here, folks. These are dark times indeed.

The next person we elect to be our county’s president will be tasked with a huge responsibility. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat. We owe it to ourselves to do the research and avoid the propaganda as much as we possibly can.

The views presented, unless otherwise noted, are of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Michigan Journal Editorial Board, the University of Michigan-Dearborn faculty or administration.