Addicted to "Coverage"

The Olympics have ended and you would think that I would reduce my TV time because of it. Nope, not if you are addicted to "coverage" like I am. News, politics, sports, entertainment -whatever, I just feel like that if I don't have cable news on all day that I will miss something vitally important. The Olympics were fun and uplifting to watch, but now that political season is in full swing it is a lot more heavy. It is disheartening to see how vicious the political process forces candidates to be. Sadly, it seems that it is no longer possible to run a "clean" campaign focusing on the issues and merit and still win. If you don't trash, demoralize, humiliate, and demonize your opponent you don't have a chance. I have always been a bit of a political junkie and have my share of nut job right wing tendencies, but I really became enthralled with the Mitt Romney run this spring because it brought the Mormon issue to center stage. It was so interesting and surprising to me to see how many misconceptions there are about Mormonism and how much widespread outright bigotry exists. I knew it was out there but didn't realize it was to that degree. So that got me hooked on the ultimate reality show - the presidential campaign.

The thing that aggravates me the most is how condescending both the Obama and McCain campaigns are. Do people seriously believe that the president has the power and ability to do all the things they promise and that the other guy is as inherently evil as they propose? Don't insult our intelligence.

I don't feel that sorry for these guys but I do sympathize with them to the degree that it would be extremely difficult to have a camera crew follow every step and record every word. I say stupid things every single day, just like how I implied on a blog post a couple days ago (now revised) that giving a kid ten bucks for a birthday is "cheap". Funny considering that 10 bucks is about $8.50 more than I have spent on any relatives' birthday the past two years. I can imagine the headlines though if I was a presidential candidate, "Out of Touch Elitest Hag Mocks Family's Generosity". See, totally not the message I was shooting for, especially considering how over the top generous our families have been during a rough financial patch for our family.

So anyway back to the campaign, unfortunately even this ridiculous scrutiny of our potential presidents can't keep some of them faithful to their cancer-stricken wives. I know you haven't been in the race for quite some time John Edwards, but I am so not going to vote for you!