Sugar and spice and everything nice, but not during election season

The Nov. 7 elections aren't far off and voters are feeling the drumbeat of the campaign. Local elections will determine the outcome of Oak Park's school bond measure and the fate of the Lowe's in Westlake Village. On both sides, the noise is making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. Both camps are out to spin the truth.

Perhaps our local races can hit a higher standard than those at the state and national level. It seems that office seekers spend less and less time talking about the good things they'll do for us and more and more effort talking about the incompetence of their opponents.

Television, it seems, is the favored medium for mudslinging. Stations are currently broadcasting a glut of attack ads aimed at several ballot measures. Almost all TV political commercials are hit pieces.

You either attack the other side, or you attack the other side for attacking you. Nobody seems to talk about the positives, only the negatives. And certainly not the issues.

Will negative campaigning ever reach a saturation point? Is it possible the public will finally say, "Enough is enough?"

Probably not. Pollsters have found that voters listen to and are swayed by negative campaigning. People enjoying listening to the dirt, and as much as we hate to admit it, mudslinging works. Winning candidates define their opponents (negatively, of course) before the opponents can even define themselves.

When the dust clears, many voters go to the polls only to pick the lesser of two evils. We aren't voting for candidates who inspire us, we're voting for whoever will do the least damage.

It's a sad state of affairs. And, it cripples voter turnout.

There's only one complimentary thing that can be said for the way we conduct election campaigns in America. We wouldn't trade it for any other system in the world.

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