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We never really seem to be too far away from another election whether it's in our communities, for the city or the state. Then there's always the 'BIG' show - the Presidential election. Can anyone remember when it stopped being about issues and became a Media Circus. It's just like playing poker where the man (or woman) with the most money usually wins.

It seems to me that we have allowed the 'Spin Doctors' to control our lives. Negative advertising campaigns have become the norm. Do they really think we are all that dumb? Is this the reason why election day turnout in the U.S. has dropped to one of the lowest in the free world. They (the politicians) have long since passed the point where they could be trusted to regulate themselves, so it's time we did it for them.

Campaigns for the November elections now start in late July or early August with each candidate running negative television advertising telling us why we should not vote for the other candidate. It would appear that the best way to hide their own inabilities to actually do the job for which they are seeking election is to attack the other person's past misdeeds.

With millions of American families living well below the poverty line and hundreds of thousands of our elderly unable to buy food due to the cost of their medication, how can they (the politicians) justify spending tens of million of dollars on a Senate seat election and hundreds of millions on a Presidential election??? After all, most of these jobs pay only a few hundred thousand dollars a year in salaries at best. And what do we normally get for all this money? Answer: a lot of LIES AND SMILES. During the elections, they all promise to make a big difference in our lives and they do ' funny how WE ALWAYS SEEM TO END UP WORSE OFF.

We (the people) will never ever get the politicians we deserve all the time we continue to allow 'Big Business' and 'Special Interest Groups' to dictate who we elect to serve us. He who pays the piper calls the tunes. It's as simple as that.

Here are two very simple changes we SHOULD demand: (1) Election Campaign Funds limited to 3 times the salary of the position they are seeking; and (2) no advertising campaigns prior to 28 days before the date of the election. Wouldn't it be nice if all politicians' pay was related to productivity and results! I wonder how long it would take to resolve issues such as social security, healthcare and homelessness. If that was the case, I wonder how many of them would want the job then? After all, just like the rest of us, they would have to actually do something, like WORK.