Politically Jaded

I know I'm not the only citizen of the United States that feels this way, but I am completely jaded by the political system in this country. I have no idea what I'm going to do on November 4. This year seemed to be a year of promise politically. It seemed as if we would finally have an exciting, promising race between two candidates offering change. While there has been plenty of excitement, it seems almost as if I am watching a circus instead of deciding who will best run our country. I had really hoped that if anyone could break the normal process of slandering, namecalling, and dragging through the mud race we call politics, it would be Obama and McCain. I believed (naively, I guess) that this race would be run differently. Unfortunately, this race has been worse than normal, which has led to my jaded feeling. There are false accusations and lies coming from both sides (it started in the McCain camp, but Obama is responding to it also).

And it's not only with the presidential race that I am frustrated. Corruption and deceit goes all the way down to the county level (as I know is not surprising). But again, it's frustrating. It seems to me that elections are nothing more than digging up the tiniest, most meaningless piece of dirt on the opposing candidate spinning it, and splashing it from here to kingdom come for all to see what a mean, dirty, low-down person that candidate is. It's eye-opening actually. When it happens to people you know, you realize how much spin is really placed on facts to get the desired outcome. The person could be a complete saint, and people could still find dirt to spin. It leaves me with a hopeless feeling, actually.

My mom recently said to me, "If we cannot trust any of our news sources to provide us with accurate, fair information, who can we trust? Just ourselves?" Yes, I believe that's so. It's frustrating that it takes so much work to dig up truth, but it is worth it when we can decide for ourselves who will best represent our needs and desires in the government.

(FYI: I recently learned about factcheck.org. This site is a nonpartisan site dedicated to checking all of the facts (hence the name) in articles, ads, speeches, etc. etc. to ensure validity. If you need a place to go to get truth, check it out to get the facts.)