Shane Wade
Opinion Editor
What are we waiting for?
News concerning politics is unavoidable, much like Oppan Gangnam Style, updates on Chris Brown and Rihanna’s relationship and VCU Security Alerts (not that we’re complaining about that one), yet Reuter’s finds that nearly 6 percent of Americans remain “undecided” as to whom they’re voting for a month from now.
And, to that 6 percent, I say enough is enough.
Let’s stop with the debates and hold the election next week. If you’re “undecided,” you haven’t been paying attention to the world around you and, frankly, your vote doesn’t really matter anyway.
If the undecided are hoping to gain further insight about the candidates through these debates, they won’t. The debates will tell us nothing that we don’t already know about the candidates: Mitt Romney will forever be painted as a disaster capitalist businessman/robot with a tendency to flaunt his extensive wealth in a Joe Biden-esque manner. Barack Obama will always be known as a trigger-happy, moderate Democrat that single-handedly killed Osama Bin Laden, has an adorable family, and is possibly an anti-American, socialist, Kenyan-national Muslim.
Debates don’t matter because presidential elections in America, for the most part, aren’t about hard-line issues like economic growth and the tax code. Sure, the debates won’t be centered around social issues, but for the next few weeks as the media regurgitates campaign talking points, statistics and figures, it’ll seem as if the economy is our top priority.
But it’s a political illusion; none of us are going to double check any of those numbers. Numbers, when it comes to the economy, are suspect and easily countered by a differing set of numbers. Once voters get into that booth, they’re going to vote for the candidate they trust and, to cycle back to the 2004 presidential election, that’s someone we’d like to have a beer with.
There’s nothing wrong with admitting that either. Politics has become increasingly difficult to follow as we’re inundated with social issues that take implicit or explicit precedence, at least with the media. Numbers are complex, but facts about an individual’s deeds and their character are not. It’s a reasonable backdrop to fall on, voting on personality.
Social issues, while less relevant to the struggling poor, that “47 percent” and “99 percent” that politicians do so awfully in pandering to, are easier to relate to and comprehend. That’s not to suggest social issues are irrelevant, but it’s a nice turn of events when the pundit panels are discussing whether the latest job report numbers were fixed as opposed to Romney’s misunderstandings of how airplanes work.
Neither of these two men, nor their running mates, will address the most critical issues related to the welfare of America. Public education reform, America’s future role in space, gun law reform and multiple other “third rail” issues will go on as unaddressed or, at best, under-addressed.
Those are the issues where candidates can have interesting, nuanced positions that don’t rely on abstract numbers from bureaus. Those are the issues that will define the candidates in a manner that will change the minds of both undecided and party line voters. Those are the issues that won’t be raised in a critical, major way at the debates.
The best thing that’ll come out of these debates will be the awesome .gifs of Obama and Romney performing Oppan Gangnam Style, Photoshops of them saying rude things to each other and images of Kanye West running up on stage to interrupt them.
The election ended weeks ago. Everyone that is going to vote is standing in line. We’re just waiting