Voter Turnout Is Low. My What a Surprise.

       There's an article in the Washington Post today "Almost no one is voting in the 2014 elections." It goes into a lot of statistics about what races got more voters out in the primaries and which got fewer voters out. It even pointed out that the big money spent on behalf of some contests didn't cause more folks to vote. The article is complete with color coded graphs and all. Why not ask voters what they like or dislike about political ads?
       The point it missed is why big money didn't encourage more voters to get to the polls. To tell you the truth, I think the big money isn't getting more voters to exercise their right to vote because that big money disgusted and misinformed far more people than it motivated. And with good reason. What happens is these political attack ads twist the words of the opposition to new meanings to fit the narrative the big donors want heard. In some cases they're complete lies. But that's okay in politics. You're allowed to lie to your hearts content. Nobody's going to get sued or arrested for lying.
       Once the election is over, the best liar gets to serve his or her sentence in Congress or the white House. Actually that's not quite fair. Sometimes the poorer liar actually gets elected. It mostly depends on how believable your opponent's lies are. But independent ads that put forth the bigger whoppers can sometimes destroy chances for the beneficiary's election. But no matter what, all this big money in elections is making a farce of our electoral process.
       Some ads are so clever it's hard to determine whether or not it's a lie or even who the ad favors. You just know that there's too much information out there to absorb. And you know most of it isn't worth your time to listen to or watch. What's needed is more debating of the issues without candidates spelling out how it's to be done, or what color the backdrop must be. Here's a thought, if you state an untruth, a horn goes off. And then put it on every channel. Either watch it or go to bed.