McLeod: Policy, not personality, should rule election

You can’t even buy gas these days without overhearing somebody talking about the election. Whether they’re touting the integrity of their own candidate or attacking the other team as evil, incompetent, immoral, know-nothing thugs, everybody’s got an opinion.

On the one hand, it’s exciting to see American voters so engaged. Previously apathetic 20-somethings are off the couch and have Facebooked their way into a formidable voting bloc; voter registration is at a record high, and I’m getting more political e-mails every day than I am ads for promoting sexual improvement products and missives from displaced Nigerian princes who need my help collecting their temporarily inaccessible funds.

The question isn’t whether or not we’re engaged. The question is: What debate are we actually engaged in?

If my in-box is any indication, we seem to be more interested in personality debates than policy issues. It’s like we care more about whether or not we can personally “relate” to a candidate than we do about their actual plans for our country.

Which is kind of ironic, because most of us aren’t going to be inviting the president over for hot dogs or palling around the bowling alley with the VP. But we will be personally affected by their policies every single day.

You know, that boring stuff like health care, the war and the environment? Well, they kind of affect you. And that other thing? Something about jobs, and, uh, money and gas prices? Oh yeah, that’s right, the economy. Well it’s sort of a problem, and it would be nice if people could quit debating which party makes better apple pie and come up with a plan to fix it.

I’m just as guilty as the next person of being more interested in a candidate’s wedding pictures than I am their policy positions. But get a grip people. This isn’t about who you’d rather have over for dinner; this is about the future of our country.

We only choose a president every four years, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask to expect voters to look beyond a candidate’s personal “narrative” (to use a cool word I heard on TV) and think about the real issues facing our nation.

A candidate’s personal experiences may influence and inform their policies. But at the end of the day, the touching video their PR people crafted for the convention is going to be forgotten before all the boiled shrimp are scarfed up at the inaugural ball.

It’s not about who overcame what odds or how white their teeth are or where they went to school or which church they belong to. It’s about who best understands our country’s (and the world’s) problems and what plans they have for getting us out of — let’s just call it like it is — the mess we’re in.

I’m not suggesting that past behavior is irrelevant. As Dr. Phil likes to say, past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. But the behaviors — past and present — that we need to be evaluating are their policies, not personalities.

We’re choosing a president and his potential replacement, not a couple of new buds for bowling night.

So choose wisely, America, because the whole world is going to live with your decision.

Contact Lisa Earle McLeod at www.ForgetPerfect.com