Cash, lies and politics

If there was ever a year that I despised the political campaign season it is this year, 2014. Every time I turned on the television I was accosted by political ads.

The Washington Post reported that as of Oct. 13, 2014, the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis of campaign spending for political ads on television in Arkansas was 40 times greater than the amount spent in the whole state of California. And get this. When you measure the amount of money spent for television political ads on a per resident basis, Arkansas tops the chart for money spent at $10.14 per person. Without being told, we all can identify the cause of this statistic, Cotton versus Pryor. Or as Tom Cotton would have you believe, Obama versus Cotton.

The Arkansas senate race alone has generated an additional $21.8 million dollars in revenue for television stations. For a person not to have seen these political ads they would have to live off the grid. But I would be curious if anybody that saw these ads learned anything new, at least that was new and accurate. It is certainly not accurate that you spell Pryor “O-b-a-m-a” and it’s certainly not accurate that Mark Pryor votes with Obama 93% of the time. Political ads are designed and crafted to manipulate voters, not educate or inform voters. And Tom Cotton’s professed ability to judge Senator Pryor’s Christian faith as disingenuous was a new low, but then Pryor’s pulling out the Bible to make a political ad to me seemed tasteless. My vote is to leave Jesus out of politics because there isn’t much Christianity practiced in politics.

Most political campaigns for President, Congress, and Governor have become nothing more than propaganda campaigns designed to attack the character of their opponent. For those of you who don’t remember the rhetoric of the cold war before the breakup of the Soviet Union and before China found capitalism, I am using the word propaganda in that historical context. During this time in history the Soviet Union and the Republic of China were ruled by communist parties that used propaganda to indoctrinate their citizens with messages with the purpose to control the minds of their people through lies and deception.

And most of us today understand that the best deception is laced with truth. I can’t profess that I know all political ads are designed to mislead, but my observations are that most political ads are void of any educational value. After $21.8 million has been spent, I still don’t know with any depth were they stand on issues that matter to Arkansans.

But the absolute most aggravating act that chaps my butt most is that money to pay for these ads, at least in the Pryor and Cotton Senate race, is that much of the money they have received and benefited from comes from sources outside Arkansas. Since I have a job, I didn’t have time to do a scientific analysis of how much money come from out of state but I did look at the most recent Federal Election Commission reports. The form I looked at was FEC Form 3 Report of Receipts and Disbursements. This form includes a Schedule A that itemizes individual contributions from individuals.

When you look at the most current FEC Form 3 file for the Mark Pryor for U.S. Senate campaign committee, I had to count down the Schedule A detail 14 slots before I came to the first contributor from Arkansas, Mr. Robert Cloar of Fort Smith, an attorney. Then I counted another 7 names before I came to another Arkansan, Mr. George Dalton, a registered nurse from Little Rock. I noticed Senator Pryor, if he wins, will sure have to give a lot of time to benefit ActBlue from Massachusetts. Act Blue has given in aggregate this campaign cycle $252,797.56.

You can learn a lot looking at campaign election reports. I noticed my friend Paul Harvel, the former CEO of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, gave the Pryor campaign $2,000. (Paul, there is nothing quite as effective as a testimonial in persuading a person to Act. Senator Pryor might now have the edge for my vote).

Tom Cotton isn’t any different. The majority of his contributors have an address other than Arkansas too and his support includes super PACs and a whole host of other PACs.
So, when I set my priorities this week, should I waste my time voting in an election where as a resident of Arkansas I have doubts my voice matters?

Although I have ignored this truth much of my adult life, government is serious business. The people who are elected to govern matter. Their decisions, or lack of decisions, affect peoples’ lives. Although our current election for a U.S. senator has been hijacked by “foreign” interests, there are still people, normal people, running for elected office on the state and local level who can’t raise enough money for their campaign which would obligate them to swear allegiance to anybody but the people of Arkansas.

Life ain’t fair and the U.S. Supreme Court believes that huge sums of money that pollute the political process is nothing more than free speech.

I will vote this year. There are many more names on our ballot than Cotton and Pryor, names of people running for office who don’t owe millions of dollars of political debts to outside interests. We need to realize the money and the focus on large races is misplaced and upside down.

Elected officials at the local level affect our lives as much or more than U.S. Congressman. I like to promote and support local businesses. I also think we should all begin to pay attention and vote local too.

See you at the polls.