Mourning the State(s) of Politics

I came across an article by David Gergen today. You can read it here, but what he said really struck me as true. The Democratic candidates are spending a lot of time quiblling over personal attacks and alleged racist comments rather than dealing with the pressing issues of this nation. After reading all the various comments, none of which struck me as particularly insightful, I decided to post my own there. And I'm reprinting it here as well:

While it is true that they do need to focus again on the problems actually facing this country and its citizens, I don’t know if that’s been true in any recent election, going back almost as long as I’ve been alive.

It’s become a world of sound bites and photo ops because that is all that both politicians (I include their operatives) and the media think we want to read or see. A world where all we get to see are video clips of candidates preaching to the choir, made up of those who can afford to pay $1000 for a fundraising dinner in the hopes that they have some chance to exert influence in a way that benefits them (the buyers, not the candidate). It is one giant Potemkin village of shiny, happy “voters” and I mourn the loss of a truly inquisitive citizenry.

This is why voter turnout has plummeted in this country… because we know deep down that our votes really don’t matter and that those who run for national office really don’t care one whit for what we have to say or what our concerns are.

I think it's becoming more and more important in this day and age for we the people to challenge the government as much as we can through intellectual discourse. Only by questioning and challenging their actions can we hope to make our government and those who seek to control it do better on our behalf, which is why they are supposed to be there in the first place.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have donated to Barack Obama's campaign and support his candidacy for the presidency. However, I have never had any direct contact with any of the candidates or their campaigners, even though I am a resident of Arizona and thus a constituent of John McCain in his role as our senior Senator. I feel that my comments above express my feelings about the political process in general and my hope that it will get better.