Spending is part of system, for better or worse

Note — The following column was published in Monday's edition of The Morning Sun.

If you’re already sick of this election season then you better cancel your cable television subscription and refrain from browsing news-related websites. Better yet: Take a vacation to someplace beyond the confines of civilization.


If these aren’t options — or you’re a political junkie, like yours truly — you best get ready for an unprecedented number of advertisements for and against this or that.

The presidential campaign will dominate much of the ads, though statewide campaigns, such as those for the plethora of ballot questions here in Michigan, will be seen and heard over the next two months.

Excluding parties and candidates, upwards of $500 million will be spent by independent political action committees on the races for president and both houses of Congress. One group, Republican-aligned Crossroads USA, will spend $300 million itself, according to a report by Bloomberg Businessweek.

Now some will chide this sort of spending as dangerous to democratic ideals. Others may cite these figures as proof of dangerously high partisanship. However, both of these criticisms are rubbish.

Americans have always been fully engaged in the political process. Campaigns of yore may not have been as expensive as today, but they were just as partisan. The heated rhetoric between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams is a prime example.

In reality, all this spending is reflective of the American people writ-large.

Perhaps in a liberal utopia there would be no political action committees (or even the much-chided super-political action committees). In this utopia, elections would be funded by government, which in truth means party bosses forcibly taking money from the cash-strapped pockets of taxpayers to pay for their electioneering.

But the United States of America, for better or worse, is no utopia.

Our country has something that many other nations on the face of the earth don’t have. This something is called the First Amendment.

Americans have a constitutional right to engage in civic discourse as much or as little as they wish. Plain and simple.

As a result, politicians, parties and independent groups will throw just about everything and the kitchen sink in the hopes of winning the general election.

Some of their messaging will be outright falsehoods. At other times it will just plain disgraceful. There will be concerted efforts to divide Americans by race, nationality, sex, religion and socio-economic status. (Exhibit A is the attempt by Democrats and the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama to slander Republican opponent Mitt Romney for achieving the American dream.)

Ultimately, it comes down to the citizenry making an informed decision come Nov. 6.

It can be tough to sort through all the noise, but ultimately a choice will have to made at the ballot box.

And for that, I applaud my fellow citizens who take the time to get out there and make a hiring decision on those who seek their employment in the great and not so great offices of state.

— Dennis Lennox