Did you survive the election?
By the time this newspaper is distributed, Election Day will be 40-odd hours in the rearview mirror and we’ll have to live with the outcome for a couple of more years. I’ve no idea about any results, winners or losers. I can only guarantee some candidates I wanted to win did and some did not. And I know some candidates you wanted to win did, and some did not. It’s sorta what keeps this whole democracy thing humming along.
The older I get, the more I understand the political process and the more discouraged I get. I wrote about some of that frustration last week. It’s not based on whether or not the candidates who align closest to my beliefs win – I’m mature enough to know you win some, you lose some – it’s based more on how we get to the finish line.
Take the case of Minnesota governor candidate Jeff Johnson, by most accounts a nice fellow who was born in Detroit Lakes (he’s a regular guy!) and graduated from Concordia College (he’s one of us!). Johnson is conservative, no doubt, but last time I checked that particular trait is not against any laws in this nation. But when it became apparent late in the campaign Johnson was well behind Gov. Mark Dayton, the Republican Party began running spooky radio ads (with ominous background music, of course) that said, “Frankly, I don’t think Gov. Dayton is capable of handling Ebola.”
Yes, the GOP played the Ebola card. Even though there’s been no evidence anybody in the state was in danger of coming in contact with Ebola or contracting the disease.
Ebola! It’s scary! And Gov. Dayton is going to infect YOU! And probably your grandchildren, too!
That’s how silly Johnson’s campaign became in the last, desperate days.
Again, since this column was written long before Tuesday, maybe it worked and Gov.-elect Johnson will have the perfect response to the Ebola non-outbreak. We’ll see.
It’s all part of the silliness surrounding campaigning these days. In the world of talk-radio, social media and 24/7 news cycles, anything goes. And often does.
StarTribune editorial columnist D.J. Tice nicely summed up the conundrum in which political candidates find themselves. Essentially, Tice said its likely candidates would love to speak their minds and be their usual honest selves, but the sad reality of modern politics prevents it.
Does anybody doubt that if you sat down with Jeff Johnson for a cold beer at Mick’s Office and asked him about Gov. Dayton’s response to Ebola, Johnson would say: “It’s a non-issue in Minnesota. I’m much more concerned about spending and the ever-growing size of government, but those things don’t move the needle for voters. Our focus groups found that Ebola scares the hell out of Minnesotans, so we had to run ads blaming Dayton for not responding properly to Ebola.”
Wrote Tice in Sunday’s StarTribune:
“Our political leaders are not all predatory pirates, self-dealing plutocrats, partisan fanatics and befuddled bumblers.
“They’re not really as interesting as that.
“In truth, those who rule us — or would like to — mostly strike one in the flesh as well-meaning, usually smarter than average and almost always equipped with the gift of gab to a fault. They have varying levels of knowledge about government and the world beyond.
“But it’s frankly hard to gauge the quality of their thinking, because beyond a few well-rehearsed ‘talking points,’ nearly all of them recoil from clarity and candor the way a cat recoils from a bath.”
Bingo.
Our politicos and wanna-be politicos are generally earnest men and women who just can’t – or aren’t allowed to – speak their minds. And if they would or could, wouldn’t that make things easier for all of us, including them?
We would know where candidates really, truly stand. What they really, truly think. And whether we should really, truly vote for them.
The candidates, meanwhile, would be able to be themselves. If Jeff Johnson really believes Ebola is a major priority for Minnesota, he could say so. If he doesn’t, he could say that, too, and stick with the important, if mundane, issues that truly interest him. Believe it or not, government spending and the size of state bureaucracy affect you whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. Ebola, barring a catastrophe, does not.
For now, it’s over and if you’re reading this you survived. That’s the good news.
The bad news? It’s only two short years until Election Day 2016. The campaigning has already started. The next fear-mongering Ebola-style ads are just months away.
(Mike McFeely is a talk-show host on 790 KFGO-AM. His show can be heard 2-5 p.m. weekdays. Follow him on Twitter @MikeMcFeelyKFGO.)