If you're like most Americans, you have. By this date, two weeks or so before the election, at least 90% and in some elections 95% of you know who you're going to vote for, political science research tells us.
Historically, at this stage of the campaign, the only people who have not determined which candidate they'll vote for are those adults who tend to not vote regularly: they'll often even pass up voting in a presidential election.
2008 campaign: most negative ever?
One benefit, if you've decided who to vote for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, or U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, is that you don't have to watch any more campaign coverage or campaign ads (if you can avoid them).
True, it must seem like this presidential campaign has been the most negative ever, but if the truth be told, it's no more negative than the one in 2004, or in 1960, and certainly not more negative than the one in 1928. In 1928, the insults and smear tactics used against Democratic Party nominee N.Y. Governor Al Smith, would set the standard for gross and outrageous campaign tactics.
Smith was wet (he was against prohibition), urban, and Catholic -- the first Catholic presidential candidate. His opponent, President Herbert Hoover, a Republican, was dry, rural, and Protestant.
Smith was despised because he represented recent immigrants to the United States -- Catholics and Jews, among others - - and at that time some Americans viewed these new voters as 'taking America in the wrong direction' and as 'un-American.'
Have we heard any refrains of the negative 1928 campaign in the current 2008 campaign?
Although Smith lost the 1928 election, the movement he started lived on. Smith's voters would subsequently go on to play a pivotal role, along with Protestants, and other groups, in building the major, diverse industrial power that the United States would become in the twentieth century. Moreover, in ways few could predict at the time, Smith's policies while serving as governor of New York put into action or 'made a daily reality' of the social mobility, economic opportunity, religious tolerance, and individualism guarantees inherent in the Constitution of the United States.
Despite encountering blatant discrimination throughout his career, Smith never let the U.S.'s failings and problems decrease his confidence in the nation's people, or in its system of government. Smith's rallying cry was: "The answer for the problems of democracy...is more democracy."
Election coverage everywhere: darn
One reason the 2008 campaign may seem more negative is the fact that there are many more media outlets today, than even four years ago. Internet broadcast via news services and via social web sites means there are many more opportunities to see campaign coverage.
The 24-news networks have only magnified the above: they have substantially increased broadcast hours devoted to politics because of the increased viewer / voter interest in this year's campaign.
So, if you have decided who to vote for, the best thing to do would be to just turn off the TV set and tune it out: most of it is cotton candy or repetitive coverage, anyway. Instead, go over your child's homework with him/her, get that chore done around the house that you've been meaning to get to, or just relax -- all are constructive, and highly recommended, alternatives.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-22-2008 @ 11:47PM
Mike Sanders said...
Excellent article!!! I never knew about Smith, only Hoover. Smith demonstrates the importance of sticking with your convictions, even if you loose... Jesus said that a man must "loose his life, in order to save it!" To me, this means that we cannot expect to get our own way, always. Yet, if we are correct in what we are fighting for, even though we may die in the process, the thing that we are fighting for, will ultimately succeed. This article has helped to revive a thread of hope, determination and humility, in my own struggles. Thank you.