Question for the candidates

Posted on Oct 19, 2008 in Language, Misc. | 0 comments

The debates are over so I missed my chance to ask a question of the candidates myself. But if I had that chance, I know what I’d ask. Well, maybe not. But at least I know the condition I’d put on the answer: it must be given without mentioning his opponent or their party. I want to hear what they’re going to do, not why the other guy won’t do it as well.

Is it really so hard for these politicians to frame an answer to, say, their health care reform platform or how they plan to reel the country back from the abyss of economic disaster without trash-talking the other candidate? They both acknowledge Americans are tired of negative politics, yet they seem incapable of rising above them. We–from those asking questions, debate moderators, and ultimately each voter–shouldn’t stand for it.

Suppose you’ve got two kids, Joe and Jane. If you ask Joe if he’s done his homework and he responds, “Jane’s not done her homework for four days, and what she did do before had all kinds of problems,” you’d stop Joe and remind him you didn’t ask about Jane. You’d see that, at best, Joe’s trying to distract you from the fact he’d not done his homework yet, and at worst he’s just castigating his sister out of spite. We don’t accept it from our kids, so why do we allow it from our public servants?

Oh well, only about two more weeks to go.

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