ShareThisBy DAVID WATERS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
I'm going to miss this past congressional election.
The dignity with which candidates conducted themselves, especially when referring to their opponents.
The restraint candidates showed in refusing to drag their opponents' families and their own families into the fray.
The discipline candidates displayed by rejecting the temptation to use religion, race, class or gender to divide us.
The frugal spending habits exhibited by each campaign (no wonder we elect people who are so good at balancing budgets).
The way the candidates ignored the pleas of high-paid consultants to go negative, insisting that this election be contested with high-minded ideals and appeals to our better angels, not cheap, below-the-belt, if-you-can't-beat-'em-destroy-'em attack ads.
Oh, wait. Sorry. That was the election in my head, the one in which "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, blah, blah, blah," get together every so often to elect honest, wise, virtuous people to represent us, and so on and so forth.
That election will never be held. Apparently, you can't have a democratic republic without politics. And as Will Rogers said, "If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics."
We had plenty of politics the past few weeks. Pander-monium. The way the candidates went after us and each other, especially in the close races, you'd think Jerry Springer and Vince McMahon were running our national parties. Maybe they are. Maybe they should be.
I had a devil of a time deciding which candidates would get my vote: the bin Laden Democrats who plan to tax us to death or the Mark Foley Republicans who plan to rob us blind.
I know. Voting only encourages them, but low turnout doesn't seem to discourage them. Nothing seems to discourage them from turning everything from the cross to the flag into a political football.
Maybe it's time we quit playing their game and make them play for us. Maybe it's time to add some checks and balances to the congressional election process. A few ideas:
Every dollar spent on campaign advertising must be matched with a dollar given (by the candidates or their parties) to reduce the national debt.
For every lie a candidate (or a party rep) tells about himself or an opponent, one percentage point will be deducted from that candidate's total vote.
Every attack ad (mail, print, radio or TV) will cost the offending party one seat in Congress until the next election.
The price of a gallon of gas can never be higher than the average price the 30 days before Election Day.
State or U.S. constitutions cannot be amended in congressional election years.
Taxes can be raised only in congressional election years.
God's name can be used in political campaigns only with the expressed written permission of God.
Every campaign ad must begin with a disclaimer. I vote for this one by H. L. Mencken: "Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule _ and both commonly succeed, and are right."
I wasn't always so cynical about politics, but even Charlie Brown gets tired of being played for a dupe.
As Charlie tells Lucy every year after she pulls the football away from him: "You're lying doesn't bother me half as much as your opinion of me. You must think I'm stupid."
What must our politicians think of us?
(Contact columnist David Waters at waters(at)commercialappeal.com or by mail at The Commercial Appeal, P.O. Box 334, Memphis, TN 38101.)
