Halloween Trick or Treating ended on Sunday, but the terror of the bogeyman remains in the 2010 elections past October 31st, carrying over to November 2nd.
I spent part of the weekend volunteering for a candidate I support, making telephone calls from a political party office phone bank. This was not the first volunteering I had done this campaign, from helping with the writing of LTEs for people less confident in their writing to making phone calls to get out the vote. In the course of those phone calls, I've smiled-and-dialed hundreds of registered voters who voted in the 2008.
In the course of those conversations, I've referred many misinformed and dis informed potential voters of the resources of politifact.com and factcheck.org. Those who didn't have home internet access or internet expertise I referred to their public library reference librarians. Thank god, in most places the libraries haven't been privatized yet, and are still non-partisan. Politifact.com declared the loser in the 2010 elections appears to be truth,
rating the election ads consistently anywhere from 'barely true' to numerous 'liar, liar pants on fire' ratings. Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, characterized by many of the prospective voters with whom I have spoken as 'an embarrassment' is the secular patron saint of failing fact check tests.
I have spent my time in long conversations with people who were persuaded by equally ill-informed conservatives explaining that it was not factual, that it was completely untrue, that the health care reform legislation (for example) does not put people behind bars for not having insurance, as promoted by right wing sources including conservative blogs back in 2009, and currently in the 2010 election ads debunked by factcheck.org.
or that as much as 10% of the future sale of their home - or any other real estate - was mandated to go into a general fund for health care costs rather than into their own pocket. The scope of new lies, new 'boogeymen' to scare people, has been truly terrifying for the harm it does to truth.
I am just as aware, and just as adamant, about the misrepresentations and inaccurate statements made across the spectrum in this election. There appears to me, from my phone conversations with people whose voting preferences I did not know (cold calls) prior to speaking with them, that there is a deliberate, coordinated effort to circulate misinformation and disinformation in order to frighten people into voting tea party, and GOP, from the conservative side of the spectrum. That effort appears to be funded by the shadow money behind the ads; it is too calculated, too deliberate and coordinated to be an accident.
I am saddened by the number of low information voters I have encountered who were willing to believe at least some of the false information, in some cases ALL misinformation.
It was not only about health care; it was about TARP, and the Stimulus, every issue - it spanned the entire range of issues interesting voters.
I was never so grateful for the opportunities presented by blogging, and for the opportunity to not only persuade people not to believe lies, but to direct them to sources to fact check for themselves - the opportunity to encourage them to fact check me too. The joy was in pushing that mostly conservative bogeyman back into the closet, or back to join the dust bunnies lurking under the bed, or whatever similar metaphor you prefer for where our unfounded fears lurk.
Because when the group of people out of power have to lie this much to win, then that is clearly the evidence that they do not believe they can win on merit, on truth, or on ideas. It is clear evidence they do not believe that people can be trusted to make their own honest judgements when presented with facts; it is clear evidence that they condone of necessity conning people 'for their own good'. Shame on them, shame on people who don't recognize that we ALL need to fact check what is presented to us instead of blindly believing what we are told, based on ideological preferences.
Save the horror for Halloween, not politics. Jon Stewart in his rally to restore sanity on the national mall on Saturday, October 30th had it right. That rally was attended by more than double the largest rallies have drawn, including more than the wildly inflated numbers for the Glenn Beck rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's " I have a dream" speech. There is a good reason despite being a comedian that Jon Stewart was again voted the most trusted man in America. While Stewart makes fun of current events, particularly politics, he does so with a scrupulous adherence to fact, unlike the montage of so-called news media footage that was put up on the jumbo trons at the rally.
Not only is Stewart factual, but he is proportional, and reasonable. It is not surprising that one of his most popular parodies has been of Foxed News Glenn Beck, the antithesis of everything that Stewart stands for - although I had to admit the vid clip of a media talking head proclaiming the Moral Panic of chaos and cannibalism had me laughing out loud.. Cannibalism is a real danger in America, in the world? If ONLY our news was as balanced as some of our comedy, we would in fact have fewer bogeymen in the 2010 election. Jon Stewart, Thank YOU, and God bless you for pushing back the darkness, and turning up the light while turning down the heat!
Because in my experience on the phones for this election, there are more people who agree with Jon Stewart - myself included - than just those who rallied on Saturday. It was noted in the Halloween edition of the CBS Sunday morning show segment with Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation and Bill Galston of the Brookings Institute think tank, hard times bring out extremist political movements and extremist candidates. In the October 17th Face the Nation segment, Bill Galston explained why it is that the moderates make up the REAL majority, despite those extremes being increased and exaggerated. Moderates tend to win the elections, even if there is an occasional 'ooops'.
In addition to the DC attendance of the pro-moderate Stewart rally, there were other more local events held in conjunction with the rally for those who couldn't get to DC, and there were the many millions watching on cable television as it was aired live. I'm going to do my very best to see they all get to the polls, that they all are reminded of where their polling place is and the polling place hours, and given the sites to visit if they are willing to fact check. That will be my small push back in support of the Stewart rally on Saturday, my humble effort to stop the post-Halloween pre-election Boogeymen.
Trick or treat is over; let's make Trick-the-Vote over too. Be an active, informed, objective and open-minded voter, not a blind ideologue.
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