Pick Me!

“Pick me, pick me!”  It’s the chant of the kindergartener wanting to be the line leader and the freshman running for student council.  It’s also the common message of the commercials that are relentlessly flooding the airwaves.  “Pick me, pick me!”

                How do we choose?  Consider the scenarios.  Does the kindergarten teacher choose the child jumping up and down in her enthusiasm for the role, or the one whose behavior has indicated that he can perform the task of leading others well?  Does the freshman class vote for the most popular, the one with the funniest speech, or the one committed to improving cafeteria meals?  And for President of the United States, who do we choose?  Experience, issues, popularity?  The most entertaining or least offensive commercials?  In our contemporary world of sound bites and tweets, do we vote for the one who makes the most noise, the most promises, or the fewest gaffes?  

In the midst of all the hype, how do we sort out what is true?  A phrase used during the presidential primary race to describe a certain candidate is perfect to illustrate what happens in the electoral process – it’s like a manure spreader in a windstorm.  How can the average voter sort out the issues while the air is so fragrant?

Here’s one example that hits us every time we put gasoline in our vehicles – the price at the pump.   Has the price of gas really doubled since Obama took office?  Is the current president to blame for the high prices of gasoline, and if elected, could Mr. Romney reduce the price of gas in time for our next vacation?  What’s really going on?

My friend Google pointed me to GasBuddy.com, where I found a graph of gas prices from 2008 to today.  Yes, the little sticker we see on some gas pumps is correct.  The cost of a gallon of that precious essential has doubled since the current president was elected/took office. 

No, that can’t be.  When was gas under $2 a gallon?  How did I miss that?  The reason I don’t remember it well is that prior to the precipitous drop right around the election of 2008, a gallon of gas had risen to $4, just in time for our summer vacation of 2008.  Its decline to under $2 per gallon lasted about 2 months, beginning its price rise even before President Obama was inaugurated.    

So, my next question is – was that the president’s fault?  His responsibility?  Did the price of gasoline, having reached an all-time high under a republican president, decline dramatically in anticipation of the election of a democrat?  Probably not.  Did President Bush work some kind of magic to reduce gasoline prices in his last few months in office?  Nope, not likely.  Or does the price of gasoline fluctuate based on Wall Street, the weather in the Gulf of Mexico, and other factors of supply and demand, rather than who is in the White House?  Well . . .

After being bombarded with political ads that proclaim to tell us the truth, how can the average voter figure it out?  Some websites promise to check the facts for us, but the browser must consider the source of the website to ascertain its bias.  It’s important to listen carefully, to ask questions, and to dig into the facts for ourselves.  And here’s a hint - if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck, even if it says it’s a donkey or elephant.

An Abbott and Costello film clip is a timely reminder for these days of inventive truth-telling.   In his classic comedy routine, Lou Costello uses addition, multiplication and division to prove that 13 x 7 equals 28.  The gag went so well the first time (In the Navy, 1941) that it was also included in A Little Giant in 1948.  Now you know and I know that 13 x 7 does not equal 28, but given the right amount of persuasion, confusion, and repetition, it’s possible to be convinced of almost anything.  That’s called being bamboozled.  Not the best way to pick the president of the USA.