Real World Wednesday

Political Infighting

As it is hard to avoid (and because I have an interest in it...not to worry, Brandy, I am an American who does care about the politics of her nation), I have been following the presidential campaign quite closely.

Well, maybe, closely is a bit of an overstatement, but I've been talking about the campaigns at work, reading up on the Internet and watching the news when I'm at my parents house (where there is a glorious assortment of cable news channels).

Having watched a number of political campaigns quite closely, I can say that the infighting only makes people look like tenth graders duking it out over who gets to be treasurer. And by the number of political campaigns I've watched closely, I mean that I clearly remember student council and sorority elections. I remember the name calling. I remember the snotty attitudes. I remember the expensive fliers posted around campus. I remember phrases from people's speeches that directly referred to the speeches of the other candidates.

Oooh, fighting dirty in high school.

And fighting dirty in presidential campaigns.

McCain kindly says that he doesn't want to undermine Huckabee's campaign by tagging him for VP and then goes on to say that a cross-nation ticket doesn't seem relevant anymore.

Don't EVEN get me started on Clinton and Obama throwing words back and forth. Clinton just needs to keep her mouth shut before she insults the Irish as well as the African Americans. St. Patrick's Day is coming up, after all. And Obama, well, he needs to stop saying things about showing Republicans what for. He may well take the office from any Republican candidate, but he won't have many friends if he keeps bad mouthing the people who are willing to cross party lines to vote for him.

So, hear this from a young voter who really cares about what happens in the next four to eight years: You going after each other tenth graders known as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, tell the voters why you are good for the job, not why the other guy isn't. And keep your mouths closed about things that have little or nothing to do with your candidacy!