I Suck At Special Elections

Today there is a special election in Massachusetts. The purpose of the election: electing the next U.S. Senator to fill the spot vacated by the former Senator, Ted Kennedy.

Unfortunately, I suck at special elections. And truth be told, I'm glad today has finally arrived. The past couple of weeks, Karen and I have been receiving a flood of automated phone calls from the candidates... the candidate's family... the candidate's supporters... etc. asking for our vote. As well, every commercial on television has been about the candidates. After a while, the campaign gets very annoying. So I'm glad today has arrived because I won't be subjected to hearing about the candidates any longer.

And the funny thing is, I have not even made up my mind yet on who to vote for. The fate of the health care bill rests in my hands. Just kidding. In my opinion, I would not be surprised if Republican Scott Brown did win this election. From a purely analytical point of view, he has definitely run a better campaign than the Democrat, Martha Coakley. I think whoever is running Martha's campaign should probably look for some other line of work. After all, Martha's campaign has... well... done nothing.

The Coakley campaign has pretty much rested on its laurels of being the "favorite". The Democratic party never seem to learn from the past. Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign was similar. Like Coakley, Clinton was favored to win the presidential nod. And like Coakley, Clinton did not appear to do much during her campaign until it was too late. And who ended up getting the votes in the Democratic primary? The current president, Barack Obama.

Being the favored candidate and showing a lack of action is definitely not the way to go. Like I always tell people: it's all about presentation. Coakley's mad scramble at the end is costing her, especially with the careless gaffe of spelling Massachusetts incorrectly... the state that she is trying to be represent. It does not present a good representation of her or her campaign. Scott Brown, on the other hand, has presented himself rather nicely (even if what Martha Coakley's campaign has said about Scott Brown is true).

Either way, my vote is going to be based on the lesser of two evils. To me, the people elected for our legislative branch are always going to be out of touch with the every day people. There's no getting around that. One of the driving forces in politics is money. Whoever has the most money vested in a particular politician will most likely have their agenda pushed through legislature. It's that simple.

Do you think if both Martha Coakley and Scott Brown did not have the financial backing that people would know who Joseph L. Kennedy is? Joseph L. Kennedy is the independent running for the same position. Unfortunately, the current system of the two parties has pretty much already ruled out Joseph L. Kennedy from the race. It's unfortunate (or fortunate depending on how you look at it), but it's true.

Needless to say, politics bothers me. If it were up to me, I'd get rid of the Democrat/Republican label altogether. If a two party system must exist, I'd rather have the two parties be called Liberal/Conversative. At least that way, it would be more accurate. Is a liberal Republican less conservative than a conservative Democrat? Who knows. Yet people are still willing to vote along the lines of their political party... because they are part of the party. It makes no sense.

Anyway, it should be an interesting election. I'm glad I won't have to receive any more automated phone calls after today.