Political Campaigns Or Liar, Liar

Does it seem to you that every new political campaign seems less issues- oriented, more marketed than content, and more half- truths than truths? It seems that most of our political campaigns seem more to be about "selling the candidate" than actually stating the candidate's positions and case.

My reaction to the Presidential campaign of 2008 was that it was a contest between one candidate that was past his prime, and another that was not ready for prime time. Rarely is any candidate as a good as his campaign promises nor as bad as his opponent's criticisms. When was the last time you remember a politician keeping all the promises he made when he was campaigning, once he was elected to office.

Many campaigns not only involve the "normal distortions" involved in campaigns, but candidates discuss issues as if they were campaign issues, that are unrelated to the office he is running for. For example, in New York State, the State Comptroller does not prepare, approve or submit the state's budget to the legislature. In New York State, the Governor prepares and submits the budget, and submits it to the state legislature for approval or modification. To make matters even more absurd, while New York State law calls for a deadline by which this budget process must be completed and a final budget approved, it has become the norm for the final state budget to take three to four extra months before it final is approved. That's one fourth to one third of the year late! The Comptroller is primarily involved with issues like the pension funds, etc., but if one listened to candidate's ads, one would never know that was the case.

Similarly, in many smaller governmental entities, there are positions such as Receiver of Taxes. The advertising for these positions make it appear that these individuals determine taxes, tax cuts, budget savings, etc. In most localities, that is anything but the case, and those individuals are basically administering a clerical bookkeeping- type department. In most of those entities, Mayors or Town Supervisors generally submit a budget to their legislature, for final approval.

Much is heard nowadays about "capping" real estate taxes. Of course, on a cursory view, why would anyone want their taxes to increase. However, the reality is that if the taxes are not received from real estate taxes, the locality still needs revenues to fund schools, etc. So, do these proposals actually save anyone any real money? It gets even worse when they discuss property assessments, because even if those are reduced, nothing generally prohibits the taxing authority from simply increasing the rate of tax on those assessments.

Until the voting public demands less "hype" and more substance from its candidates, nothing will improve, and things will probably continue in the same absurd matter. Until a system is developed where specific questions are submitted to candidates, and the public demands substance- related answers, there will be no real improvement in the quality of the performance we receive from elected officials.