As democratic citizens, we must not lose sight of this fact during this time of heavy campaigning: All parties involved have employed, at a huge expense, marketing firms and analysts whose job it is to come up with finely tuned pieces of network art in the form of campaign advertising, the contents of which they would have us believe are the whole truth and nothing but the truth. These pieces of marketing art are placed before us at strategic times of the day. These ad campaigns are designed to cause strong emotional reactions within us. These campaigns attempt to lead us to believe that there are only two sides to issues – the right side and the wrong side – never allowing for gray areas.
The act of elections and politicking has been turned into a dangerous monster. As the voting public, it is our job to do our own research on candidates and parties. We cannot depend on the spin doctors whose only job it is to research the private and public lives of the competition and create hypnotic, subliminal and often personally damaging campaigns. These campaigns are often completely devoid of (or worse yet, distort) the important facts that the public needs to make important judgments on who will lead our communities, our states and our country.
We have a huge responsibility to ourselves and the coming generations to make good decisions about the impending presidential election. Do not let network advertising be your guide to choosing your candidate. There is a tremendous amount of information available that, once assimilated, will allow us to see through all the glitz and glamour, get to the issues and cast a meaningful vote.
Karen Knapp
Snohomish
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