Election issues

With the presidential election campaign dominating TV both in advertising and news we get a daily surfeit of information, accusations, half-truths, misinformation and downright lies. Most of us take it for granted as the price of democracy.

 There are certain facts that we should keep in mind. Most candidates are basically decent people who really have the impression that they can do what is best for you. But in their efforts to get elected they try to "spin"  the facts in a way that will appeal to you. That may mean denying their own failures and twisting what their opponents do/say/plan in a way that makes them look bad. So don't believe everything they tell you. They are not angels and their opponents are not monsters. They are human which means they can make mistakes and some of their mistakes come back to haunt them.

You will make mistakes too in the candidates you vote for or against. But you can try to make good choices by listening to and reading what they have to say. Don't vote for somone just because they carry a label of a party your family always voted for. Two of my favorite candidates in the past were Bobby Kennedy and Barry Goldwater who were philosophically  opposed to each other. But both were consistent in their policies and spoke with conviction. I felt that you knew where they stood even when you disagreed with them, that they would make hard choices, not necessarily popular ones. On the other hand I thought Jimmy Carter was a better person than Richard Nixon, yet Nixon was a better president.

Sometimes we need to vote for a candidate with whom we disagree because we respect his character and honesty. Sometimes we will make mistakes about policies but character is harder to fake.