Election Day has become so scary that it should be moved to Halloween. On every Election Day for the past many years I have had feelings of reverse peristalsis so much so that I must purge both before and after voting. I force myself to the ballot box knowing that I reside in the highest taxed county in the nation and that our jails are overcrowded mostly due to the crooked politicians being sent there.
The public knows almost nothing about the candidates for whom they are voting. The candidates spend millions on signs and television ads which they plaster everywhere but spend almost nothing on defining issues. They want to keep it that way. Handsome or pretty faces like Dorian Gray take precedence over actual records. Honesty is measured by smiles, handshakes and who has the best commercials. Like Count Dracula, their phony ads come out at night.
This past election cycle was no different than any others. If Presidential campaigns portend what to expect over the next year, we will have more candidates complaining about the liberal media’s conspiracy or “gotcha questioning” instead of addressing the issues. The success of a candidate is determined by how much money they can raise rather than what they have done or intend to do.
I am a lawyer and a judge, yet my wife, an honors’ graduate from a prestigious university with a Master’s Degree and a Past President of the League of Women Voters, like many of our friends, goes “eenie meenie” at the ballot box when it comes to choosing candidates, particularly judicial candidates. This year the major political parties cross endorsed candidates leaving no choice for voters. The election of those candidates was a fait accompli.
Two who were automatically elected to the Supreme Court for that reason, had no prior judicial experience. They distributed no information about themselves since they did not have to do so. Their election, like so many others, was the product of brokered, corrupt deal making by politicians and bar associations who approve unqualified candidates if they have paid their dues to a political party. As always, success in politics has everything to do with money; still “the root of all evil.”
