|
 he election mailers are arriving. TV and radio commercials
are running in earnest. I can't help but wonder how something
so important government is utterly trivialized and distorted
in so many ways. With so much at stake, evidently, almost anything
goes. It's a battleground where survival of the fittest is tested
by a daunting gauntlet of demands to please, rushes to judgment
and salvos launched to get attention.
 Given
that the purpose of every political advertisement is to promote
one result -- or demean another -- with the overriding, ulterior
motive of persuading a specific outcome, I have to wonder how
anyone can believe the accusations and claims made in campaign
ads and brochures.
Each
politician's desire to win combines with short media formats
to create plenty of opportunities for misleading claims and accusations.
This is problematic because accusations with merit deserve to
be heard. On the other hand, attacks without merit, out of context,
and the manipulation of incomplete information are virtually
impossible to refute, if a campaign can even afford a response.
There
is also a tendency to make nonspecific, feel-good claims that
are either not practical or, with further analysis, wouldn't
provide real solutions at a reasonable cost. The costs are seldom
brought up at all. Watching the debates, you'd think everyone
running was a tax-and-spend Republican! They're all going to
solve the housing crisis, traffic, crime, education, and clean
water. "Give the voters what they want" is the order
of the day. The inconvenient fact that everyone can't get what
they want without a massive tax increase -- if even then -- is
conveniently ignored.
The
more manipulative campaigns take it one step further by making
accusations or claims about themselves or others, whether or
not it is consistent with their past records or under the purview
of the office they are seeking.
Mayoral
candidate Barbara Warden has "gone negative" with recent
TV ads attacking perceived front-runners Ron Roberts and Peter
Q. Davis. The negative aspect is less disturbing than the disconnect
in the substance of the accusations. Warden disses Roberts for
voting for the 4S Ranch project, implying that today's traffic
problems are somehow related. There are at least two major problems
with this. First, every insider at the City of San Diego would
tell you that if the 4S Ranch property had been located within
the City, Warden would have been leading the charge for it. She
had no objections to equivalent projects due west of 4S. Secondly,
unlike past projects, all of the SR-56 corridor projects were
linked with major contingencies connected to the completion of
56, improvements to I-15, and with moneys paid in advance of
construction.
Marion
Dodson is using the same hypocritical approach against Pam Slater
in the County Board of Supervisor's race. Dodson is even more
blatant in misrepresenting Slater's handling of 4S Ranch. Slater
led the charge to require 4S Ranch to pay for freeway improvements
-- as well as many other important design criteria -- before
construction begins. That was the first time any local politician
had been able to achieve direct payments for freeway improvements.
While Dodson accuses Slater of being the developer's candidate,
Dodson herself has much stronger personal stakes in the real
estate industry than Slater.
Scott
Peters, candidate for City Council District 1, wins the "prize"
as the target of the most egregious character assassination mailer
produced in San Diego politics for years. Evidently a believer
in negative opposition research, opponent Lisa Ross tracked down
and extracted quotes from a case Peters had defended while serving
as County Counsel and defending taxpayers against issues over
the County's beleaguered landfill in San Marcos. Even though
Peters received the endorsements of the League of Conservation
Voters and numerous environmentalists, including this columnist,
"Neighbors for Lisa Ross" has launched a smear mailer
labeling him "a Toxic Waste Dump attorney." No toxic
waste happened to be involved, so this hysterical attempt to
misrepresent Peters record is fear-baiting at its worst. This
can only be a sign of true desperation. For a complete rebuttal,
see www.scottpeters.net.
Ross
never raised these issues at the dozens of forums the candidates
have attended, so that Peters could have answered accusations
before the voters. Instead, she has employed the same last minute
attack tactics that turned people off to her political mentor,
Peter Navarro. Is this what she means by her campaign slogan,
"Bringing People Together"?
Extracting
quotes out-of-context and deliberately distorting the facts in
order to serve political ambitions is not a quality we need in
law makers. It's one thing to honestly disagree about something.
It's another to lie or misrepresent positions. Each and every
campaign communication reveals information about that campaign's
character, values and resources -- and the length to which they
feel it's fair to go in their attempt to gain power.
If candidates
don't or won't exercise good judgment in running responsible
campaigns, then we can only conclude they won't exercise good
judgment in other decisions either. Above all, I think that American
voters do want to believe our politicians. Unfortunately, more
often that not, we just can't. About the only believable things
I can find in campaigns these days, other than the occasional
breath of fresh air in a public debate, are the campaign finance
reports and the independent endorsements. In the end, those say
much more than any piece of campaign literature or advertisement.
|
.