Time to Wise up on Presidential Elections

Our quadrennial U.S. presidential election cycles are rather interesting events. They represent a moment in American civil engagement when voters swoon at the idealized fantasy that a better leader is looming out there just a ballot box vote away. Voters seem to get intoxicated by the pageantry, arousing stump speeches and saturation media coverage. But while these elections are vital to our Constitutional democracy, there are a few cautionary points voters should heed before getting sweep away in the spectacle and hype of the presidential campaign season:

Stop yearning for the next great political messiah -
The public needs to stop building presidents up to be more than what they are, which are public servants hired to do a job. Furthermore, political leaders aren’t omniscient beings endowed with powers that enable them to wave magic wands that instantly fix all the nation’s problems. We also don’t live in a dictatorship, so the president isn’t able to simply do what he wants at will. He’s only one person who must contend with an established political system, which includes a coequal branch of government (the U.S. Congress) that he must navigate and collaborate with in order to advance his agenda. Moreover, the president, no matter how well-intentioned or politically gifted, is limited in his ability to move his agenda due to the constraints of the legislative process, which can be extremely difficult.

Beware false political prophets -
These are the White House aspirants who boldly claim to possess the requisite skills and experience needed to solve all our problems. Voters of course cheer them on freely, enthusiastically drinking the Kool-Aid these charlatans peddle. But what voters fail to grasp while entranced in the intoxicating haze of scripted speeches and poll-tested campaign rhetoric is that there is a fundamental difference between “campaigning” and “governing.” As candidates vying to win their way into elected office, it’s easy to promise voters the moon on the campaign trail and make unrealistic assertions about what they can do once in office. Also, candidates are completely unburdened by having to make the tough decisions officeholders confronting real problems have to make everyday.

One reason high-office contenders get away with telling such fables stems from not usually being held accountable for their fantasy promises or intentions on the campaign trail. If the fables sound credible enough such as promising to fix Medicare and Social Security or easily creating millions of new jobs, candidates get the benefit of the doubt from voters who are often less concerned about the specific details no matter how impractical the claims may be.

In truth, if our country’s problems were as easy to fix as some candidates would naively have voters believe, wouldn’t they have been resolved already? That’s just something to keep in mind the next time you hear candidates promising something that seems too good to be true.

Change for change sake is seldom a good idea -
Contrary to popular belief, change isn’t always good. When election-year emotions and passions are running high, voters can get fired up, sometimes charging to the polls with a throw-the-bums-out mindset. And while there are many political bums that need to be thrown out of office from time to time, voters need to be careful that they are not hastily throwing in a new set of bums to replace those just booted. Well that‘s exactly what happened in the 2010 elections when voters stormed to the polls on a wave of so-called anger to throw out the Democrats who they replaced with band of anti-government conservative extremists called the Tea Party.

The prolonged debt-ceiling crisis was dragged out in large measure because Tea Party members in the U.S. House of Representatives stubbornly refused to compromise, choosing instead to risk bringing our nation’s economy, which is already on shaky legs, to the brink of collapse. But such behavior was reasonably predictable given some of the extremist rhetoric many of these candidates espoused during the 2010 campaign. True, the public wisely rejected many of these candidates as not sufficiently qualified to hold elected office, but they also unwisely voted a number of them into office, and now we see the result.
Voter anger directed at our dysfunctional political process is fine, but it makes no sense to exacerbate the problem by electing hyper-partisan leaders who make matters worse. 

This is equally important when voters cast their votes for president. Voters should avoid making a partisan-fueled, knee-jerk decision that could have lasting consequences. Vote wisely, but more importantly, have realistic expectations for the candidate you choose.