From: pat@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Louis Sugent)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Are Sound Bytes sufficient exploration of the "Issues"
Date: 7 Apr 92 23:27:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: chinet.1992Apr7.232744.14101
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX

In article <1992Apr5.043725.28885@Princeton.EDU> niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:
>In article <1992Apr4.153643.23027@chinet.chi.il.us> pat@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Louis Sugent) writes:
>
>>To set the stage for my question:
>>I regularly keep tabs on canidates and issues through the usual TV channels,
>>the Chicago Tribune, The Economist, Time, and Newsweek.
>>As such a person, I feel I am as up to date on "the issues" as any rational
>>person could be without actually being involved in a campaign.
>>Given that I do keep up and know most of what the canidates are saying, my
>>vote essentially comes down to this:
>>[
>> My points on presidents deleted.  In it I bash everyone, including
>> the Democrats (not Clinton's) willingness to raise my taxes.
>>]
>

>While I won't debate this whole thing, since you're making a different
>point, I just want to say that you have to be making an awful lot of
>money for him to want to raise taxes on you, given that his middle class
>tax cut covers 70% of the country.

  So says he who doesn't read the fine print.  I haven't read the fine print,
but that is part of my point.  I'll address that later.

>Now this is what I had an argument with my roommate about the other day,
>so I have to respond to it.  You're probably an average American, which
>means you go to the movies, watch sports, watch TV, etc.  And you
>probably spend hours every week doing it.  But you have 'a job and a life'
>so you can't spend time evaluating the candidates?  If not, you deserve
>what you get.  Why is picking a president supposed to fun?  Why is it
>supposed to be easy?  What's more important than picking a president?
>Not to mention you *do* get paid for it; or at least taxed for it.
>
>What *BETTER* things do you have to do with your time?   We're not
>talking about hours and hours every day, or anything.  But if you can't
>spend a few hours a week learning about the candidates, why not?
>

  Well, actually I'm probably pretty far from an average American, which
means I am a consultant.  Notorious for long hours and brutal days (and 
weekends).   

  Actually, I'm pretty easy to convince on this issue.  I do spend
more time on politics than I do any of watching movies, sports, TV, etc.
My point was: "What has this study got me?"   My final voting decision will
probably come down to the points I made in my previous article and I may have
been better off taking on even more consulting and listening to a few sound
bites than be as up to date on the issues as I am. 

  In fact, my entire original article could easily have read "why did
I spend all my time learning all this stuff if I'm just going to vote
the same way I would have if I hadn't become involved?"  Peace of mind?
Entertainment?  (This is rhetorical, of course, only my subconscious knows
for sure).

  Case in point: Clinton's middle class tax cut.  What are his real plans?
The only way I could know for sure is to see his billion or so page plan
for updated tax code.  Then I could go in and see if it really would decrease
taxes (in aggregate) on the middle class(long-term).  Of course, such would take
a lot of research and economic study.  All I know is "tax reform" was supposed
to lower my family's tax rate and increased it 15% (tricky devils).  What
can I expect Clinton (and the Democrats) to do *after* the election?  Perhaps,
raise the taxes they just cut while not lowering the ones they raised?

  Clinton is also indicted for being a consistent tax raiser in Arkansas.  I 
suspect that aggregate taxes for all groups except the very poor would go up 
under a Democratic presidency.  But all this is a whole other issue.  My point
is how can I know what will happen without a lot more reasearch (which I don't 
have time for) and how much more would more research tell me?  
  (BTW, Bush isn't any better IMHO, but I don't want to get into it on this
thread.)

  Given this example, hopefully my point is more clear.  I can never know what
a canidate really stands for.  I don't have time to read tax code.  All I can
really figure out is some shadowy representation that he claims to stand for.
(Even looking at a voting record, which is a pain, doesn't really help.)
Since neither Clinton nor Bush seem trusworthy enough to even keep
their word on what they are saying, this is even more complicated.

  Based on a shadowy representation and my trust that a canidate  will
stick to his  shadowy representation (which is low in this case), I have to
make a decision.

  Now perhaps I overstate my case when I say sound-bite.  There are issues
which helped to form the shadowy representation I have in my head that have
nothing to do with sound bites, but my overall voting opinion was probably
not altered by such.

  Perhaps the problem is with these particular canidates.  If I trusted
either of them to stick to their sound-bite, I wouldn't feel a need to read
their tax proposal in detail in order to know if I believe it.  Then again,
if that were true, I could go ahead and listen to the sound-bite.


Pat

-- 
Patrick Sugent                       

pat@chinet.chi.il.us