Election Over Load Creates Apathy

Typically during my normal day of work, reading, radio listening, and TV watching, I find one or two things that give me the thought "I should write a blog post about that!". Once I identify a potential topic, my mind wanders during free moments to start contemplating the pieces of the post. What are the points I can make? What research do I need to do? What format should I write in? Sometimes I'll even jot down a few random thoughts on a piece of scrap paper and fold it into my pocket until I can get to a computer. Not all of these daily epiphanies actually become posts, but almost all that do become posts have been born of this sort of haphazard process. I'm pretty sure that's not how George Will comes up with his columns, but for me, that's how the process goes. However, I've noticed that lately, I've had less of these moments. I took a moment to reflect on the cause of this observation, and I can point to one thing as the source -- election over load.

It seems that the nearly 2 years of 24-7 election coverage has finally gotten to me. Most days, much to the disappointment of Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, there is nothing going on save for the typical campaign stump speech by one of the candidates. They analyze and over-analyze every word uttered by every candidate. Sick of the faux analysis, I waited weeks for the first debate to come. When it finally arrived (and there was definitely some question whether it would arrive as scheduled) I struggled to not fall asleep on my couch as the candidates repeated talking points we've all heard dozens of times before.

The vice-presidential debates are Thursday. I fear that these debates have the potential to be another yawn-fest. It seems that dialogue the caliber of the Lincoln-Douglas debates could not live up to the hype of this upcoming debate.

So, for my own selfish reasons, and the sake of this blog, I hope these next 5 weeks produce some substance. Other than that, November 4th can't pass fast enough for me!