Election Campaigns That Still Don't "Get It"

It is Political Season in Georgia, and I am so sick and tired of Politicians whose sole reason to vote for them is that their opponent is worse. I have reached the end of my rope. In this case it is a man who wants to be our Attorney General and he wastes three pages of his four page brochure, his one chance to tell me why he would be a good AG and what he would do to help hold us back from the abyss that our President and Congress are trying to push us into. He wastes it telling me about his opponents infidelity - on three pages!

On his one remaining page what information does he try to squeeze in? Well, 2.4 inches at the top of his 11 inches is address space. Then 4.5 inches of the obligatory smiling family picture. Then the obligatory "Proven Conservative Leader" boilerplate. A 12 point line about how he got an "'A+' rating from the Georgia Christian Coalition." That tells me both good and bad about him - the good that he probably is a decent person, but the bad is that he is probably the kind of anti-libertarian Republican that drives people away from the Republican Party, especially when we need to scale back the size, power and cost of ALL OUR GOVERNMENTS. And finally, the coup de grace, the obligatory Pro-Life line. Sam, you aren't pregnant. You aren't running for gynecologist. You aren't even running for the legislature where you could pursue the issue. It has nothing to do with Attorney General. So why is it there? Twice. Twice because this section has a second column consisting of a 16 point this time list of "PROVEN. CONSERVATIVE. PRO-LIFE", his logo and "REPUBLICAN".
I think it is a cynical grab at what he thinks conservative voters are. Cynical because he thinks we, like he, are more concerned about trying to control others than we are about our own freedom, independence, fiscal responsibility and the Georgia and United States Constitutions. He is just another professional politician more interested in getting himself a job than in fixing our government.
No, Sam, I won't be voting for you. It doesn't mean I will vote for your opponent, but I won't vote for you.

Do not reward negative campaigning.
Force them to tell us about what they will do, or withhold your vote.

Change - any change at all

A thought occurred to me while reading an old friends new blog. She describes herself as running on the conservative side of thought. It made me think of all the Conservative and all the Liberals I have ever known. Almost by definition, conservatives are happy with their station in life; they want to keep what the have. And as a result they are happy people.
And the contrapositive, the Liberals I know are not happy with the way things are or themselves.
Often they are not just sad, but angry. They think change - any change at all - will improve their lives. Hence, we have a presumptive Democratic candidate who promise merely change - unspecified change - and they crowd goes wild with anticipation.

I sit libertarian, so I don't know what that makes me other than someone who just wants the government to go away and leave me alone save for the true and proper policing powers of the state - protection from theft of life, liberty, or property.