“If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.”
– Geddy Lee, lead singer from Rush, in “Free Will”
– Garth, to Wayne, and Wayne, to Garth, in the street hockey scene from “Wayne’s World”
And, the game is, in fact on. Pull the handle. Fill in the circles. Get your “I voted” sticker and wear it proudly on your lapel. And then realize that when you wake up tomorrow, the media you consume will look, sound and feel very different. That alone is reason enough to vote, just knowing that the cheap-shot, undermining, negative, inaccurate and half-truth political ads are over for awhile.
Yes, I realize that it’s an out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire scenario, because we’ll be lambasted with ads for the next “big Christmas toy.” But, if they start running ads for fingernails on chalkboard audio tapes, I’ll be tempted to buy, as long as I don’t have to listen to or see any more political ads.
Before I propose a solution, let me just say that I don’t like rules. I believe we ought to have precious few of them. Golf’s rules are pretty solid, but there are at least two too many of them. Baseball’s rules are almost perfect (in the National League, at least). Parliamentary procedure seems to work, but only eleven people on earth know how to manage it. Rules are not my friend. Offsides in soccer makes no sense to me, and I still don’t know why they still have a rule called “traveling” in the NBA. Therefore, I don’t think we need many rules. Not many at all. Ten seems a good number, if they could be written in stone… (Just sayin’…)
Still, with today’s Daily Difference, I’m proposing that we add one rule for all subsequent elections.
In your political ads, you can not mention your opponent’s name. You can not imply whether he or she is an idiot, no matter how much empirical proof there might be that he or she is, indeed, an idiot. You can not use innuendo, nor can you use a “statistic.” (“Figures lie and liars figure,” Dad used to say…)
In your political ads, you can talk about your idea. Your belief. Your plan. And that’s all.
I’m Steve Heston, and I approve this message.
Johnathan Crawford says
Priceless. I too approve this message
Mick Kirisits says
10 is a good number, most everyone can count that high.
Danny L. Smith says
Political ads? Where?
Steve Heston says
Any more room on that island, Danny?
Chuck says
Eliminate political adds paper, phn, tv, radio. Let the media just the report on the canadates. And then enforce truth in reporting. Candidates can still have political rallies.