Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Things That Matter

One thing that is continually frustrating in our media is that the people who are paid to talk about politics focus on the polls, the horse race, the "appeal" of the candidate. I was listening to NPR for a bit and it took callers to inject any issues of policy or substance.

Now I get that all the things that shouldn't matter much in politics do actually matter. Most people don't spend a lot of time to inform themselves on candidate platforms, policy positions, etc. So much about a candidate is unknown and unknowable so people, as we all do, make gut level decisions based on charisma and other things. And to some degree charisma itself is a real thing in a business where persuading people is part of your job. But still, every now and then, it would be nice to be reminded that it's policy that really matters.