Vote for me, my opponent has bad breath.

In many places around the US, it is voting time. And we all know what that means. Time to go to the polls and cast your vote based on, well, what? Oh yea, attack ads, false ads, outlandish accusations, hate speeches, attacks campaigns, and other bizarre information that has NOTHING to do with the issues, the people, or what we are voting on.

Here in California, a bill to make oil companies pay a tax to take oil from the ground is a big issue. The law specifically states that this tax, which is charged in almost every other state where oil is taken, cannot be past on to consumers in increased price of gas. But Chevron is spending millions of dollars to attack this proposition with outright lies and falsehoods, and at a rate of 10 to 1 or more over the proponents, who are making their own outlandish claims, just not as loud. The against ads say outright things like “Oh, this is just what people need, a 4 billion tax on them..” except the tax is not on people! The ads say, “…and this will increase the price of gas at the pump…” even though the law says it cannot. OK, I am sure some economist or bean counter at the big oil companies will find some way to increase the price of gas, but they will do that anyway. And this proposition is flawed in many ways, like the fact that the reason California companies do not pay this specific tax is that they pay almost the same amount in other California taxes that do almost the same thing. Strangely, none of the ads for or against ever mention that fact. It is all misrepresentations and lies.

And now, with only a few days left, all the candidates are pouring on the negative hype to make you not want to vote for their opponent. And some of these are more outlandish and crazy every day. In Modesto California, one candidate pointed out that his opponent had a heart transplant, and would probably drop dead before his term was up!

And in a bizarre twist, Cruz Bustamante, wanting to be our insurance commissioner in California, released his own self-attack advertisement about his being overweight, and then followed it with a message about how much weight he has lost. Oh, then I guess he will make a good insurance commissioner since he lost all that weight! Or am I supposed to think that if he can loose weight, then he can take the weight out of our insurance bills?

We have even had attack ads against propositions in California that mention the number, attack something unrelated, but forget to actually mention the subject of the proposition at all. Vote NO on 76 or this duck will die!

And it just keeps getting worse. As time goes on, the politicians themselves are pulling out all the stops in what appears a campaign to actually distract everyone from any serious issues at all. I have even seen ads with George Bush and past-president Bill Clinton pushing issues and people. Personally, I can understand getting past presidents, as they are looking for things to do and ways to make money, but I find it totally disgusting that our current president is selling his time (and spending our tax payer money too) on pushing issues and people on advertisements on TV and radio. Why is my tax dollar going to have our president push personal and partisan issues? That just seems wrong, and not only for the president, but for any currently elected official, except if they themselves are running

The real sad part is that almost no one reads the actual issues any more. And politics has even crept into the ballot themselves, with their small political twist and message in the two-line description. One local issue wants to make it illegal for the government to use the right of eminent domain to take your property for redevelopment. On the surface, it sounds good, and that is ALL that is written on the two-line ballot, and obvious omission to get it past. But a closer look shows that this could cost the local government millions of dollars in challenges and claims because the government would have to pay fair prices for land USE before pushing someone off or tearing down a building or home, even if the land is blighted. But it gets better, because fair use is a can of worms. If a developer gets a piece of land, and then wants to build 200 homes, and the local government says no, planning says only 100, they can make a claim for the lost revenue of those “lost” 100 homes against the local government as it is just like tearing down 100 homes. And they would probably have to pay, because the developer can say that the government took away 100 homes. Of course, the two line ballot and the simple description do not tell you this, reading the text of the law does, but I guess I am unusual in that I actually like to know what I am voting on.

Some recent polls show that a large majority of voters read nothing, and vote simply on what they have heard on TV and radio, or seen on billboards or paper advertisements. Unfortunately, this wonderful government of ours has no laws in place to say that what is said or claimed must actually be true, or even based on real facts. This would never happen, because the people who would make that law are the very same people who got elected by breaking that ideal in the first place. It is a good guess to assume that most voters ignore the true facts, and vote based on the large stack of false and misleading campaign crap that comes in the mail, and what they hear on TV. Damn, in California, we elected an insurance commissioner twice even though he screwed up our insurance badly the whole time he was in office. He must have had great hype!

My favorite lie is these “groups” that are created, with clever names, to sponsor one of these false and misleading advertisements. In the oil tax issue mentioned above, the against group says, “Paid for by a group of concerned citizens against higher taxes…” What they do not tell you is that this group is all executives at Chevron, which you can discover if you dig.. SIGH! “Paid for by teachers, firemen, and people against unfair government.” Well, that narrows it down, doesn’t it! All teachers? All firefighters? Or do they only need find two of each?

So what can or should you really do?

1). READ! Your voter booklet comes with all the information you need on the issues and propositions. Look at the actual law and see what they claim. Yes, a lot of it is difficult, but you can pull out the meaning if you try. Investigate your candidates.
2). Look at what ALL sides have to say, not just your own party, because your party wants their candidates elected EVEN if they are not good ones. I like to look at both the Republican, Democrat, and Green Party write-ups to see what they each have to say. I will even lance at independent journals and local papers to see what is said. Of course, each will have their own slant, but can you find a common thread in two out of three, for example?
3). Talk to your informed friends and see what they think. Especially if you can find someone in a different political party. We often go to a “voter party” where many views are present, and we discuss the issues and candidates. It really helps to hear what the other sides think.
4). Stop voting your political party and start voting your mind. All to many times on this very board, I see so many people argue the political party line politics and not the real issue. If you are reading this, you are obviously an intelligent person looking for information, so use that intelligence to make smart decisions. I just cast my ballot via absentee ballot, and I can tell you that I did not vote all Democrat (which I am) because frankly, many of the democrat issues and people stink! Vote the person and what they stand for. For the issue because of what you truly feel and believe, NOT because the party of your choice says you should vote for it.

Digression: I was in Sacramento on a political agenda talking to politicians. One Democrat and one Republican, in separate meetings, when asked how they would vote, said to my group, “Well, we will need to see what the party line says before we decide.” I can tell you that neither of these people will get my vote. As “representatives”, they should be voting what the majority of their constituents believe, not some political party tells them to do. This just told me that they are not representative at all.

5). IGNORE TV ads, radio ads, and that damn crap they send you in the mail. It is lies and untruths, and just plain garbage. Turn it off, tune it out, and throw it away. It is not good information, and it should not be used.

6). Look for candidates who are not attacking other candidates. This should be a VERY good sign regardless of their party. Of course, they should also represent your core beliefs, but at the least, do not vote for someone who is attacking all the time.

7). Use your intelligence. If you hear an advertisement that says this will cost the tax payers millions of dollars, and you want to believe it, research it and see if it is true.

8). DO VOTE. Even if you do not have time to do all the research, at least vote on the issues and people you do know. You can leave issues, people, and propositions blank. Your ballot will not be rejected because you did not vote on some things. For example, in California, we were asked to vote YES/NO on a number of middle court judges. I could not find any info on these people, and had no information to go on, so I did not vote on them. There were two propositions that were so misrepresented, I voted NO just because they were too complex to understand. As a good rule of thumb, if you cannot understand it now, vote in a way that causes the least amount of change, usually NO. If it was a good idea, it will be back again, and next time, hopefully they will clean it up.