Campaigns are Useless

At least in their current form–which if we are to believe reports, goes back to ancient Greece–campaigns are useless. That is, each candidate telling the public about all the things the other candidate stands for, or wants to do, is not persuasive.

You see, the reason this is useless is that all the things one side paints as the worst thing in the world that the other guy stands for, the other side actually supports. I'll use the Nevada Senatorial campaign as an example.

Shelly Berkley claims that Dean Heller wants to remove federal funding from things like PBS, Medicare & Medicaid, and the mortgage modification program, and to repeal the PPACA. Well, she's probably right, and I support all those positions.

Dean Heller claims that Shelly Berkley wants to take money from profitable small businesses and give it to people who bought houses they couldn't afford, people who make television shows that teach children to depend on society for their basic needs, and people who cheat and game the welfare system so they don't have to work. He's probably right (except maybe on the particulars of the last point), and the people who support Berkley are all for it.

So you see, the problem is not the campaign; it's the diametrically opposed philosophies of the two major factions of society. The campaigns, and the ancillary phenomena like robo-calls, polling calls, pundits dissecting campaign commercials, and debates–and the endless ensuing discussions–are just annoyances. Huge annoyances, but merely annoyances nonetheless.