If people skipped voting next Tuesday, Nov. 8, we could almost understand.
And it has nothing to do with the candidates we are able to vote for (or against).
Because we’re in the Philadelphia media market, we have been inundated with a ceaseless barrage of negative ads from the Pennsylvania Senate and governor’s races and various Keystone State congressional campaigns.
If people believed 10 percent of the negative ads, they wouldn’t vote for anyone in Pennsylvania. All of the candidates are frauds, liars and an absolute danger to the future of this country.
We realize that important rights and control of the U.S. House and Senate are in the balance, but do we have to be bombarded by the negative ads on repeat on every channel?
The only connection we have to those races – aside from the fact we have lots of Pennsylvanians who are second-home owners here at the shore – is our state being denigrated day in and day out. One of the biggest digs is that GOP Senate candidate Dr. Oz is from (cue the ominous music) New Jersey.
It’s obvious the TV doctor is a carpet-bagger who has lived in our state and only bought one of his nine or 10 homes in Pennsylvania to run for office there, but why does New Jersey have to get the pasting? This state already is the brunt of jokes. Now we get to hear about it every commercial break.
We’re buried under those ads here while we hear almost nothing about the people running for office in South Jersey. The one exception is the neighboring congressional race in the Third District pitting incumbent Democrat Andy Kim against GOP challenger Bob Healey. That one New Jersey race has been getting a lot of airplay as Election Day nears.
That relates to our district mostly in the fact that redistricting pushed more Democratic-leaning voters into Kim’s district to protect him while giving up on the Second District by adding more Republican-leaning voters where Republican incumbent Jeff Van Drew is facing a challenge from Tim Alexander, a Democrat with a law enforcement and prosecutorial background.
Given so much negative advertising and how so many partisans from elected officials to candidates and voters continue to diminish our democracy by repeating the lies about a stolen presidential election, it is discouraging, but voting does matter.
While what federal office-holders do can seem remote, on the ballot are a slew of candidates we can vote for who will be making decisions about localized issues that affect our lives.
On the pages of this newspaper we have profiled a lot of local candidates, in municipal elections in Somers Point, Northfield and Upper Township, in school board elections in Ocean City and Upper Township, and those running for county commissioner. We have contested elections in all those places with candidates who have views of what they want to do in our communities and school districts.
That is why we have written substantial profiles of so many local candidates. We want to give our readers the opportunity to know more about the people who can have a substantial impact on issues ranging from tax rates to the education of our children.
It is worth the time for us to write these profiles and for voters to read them to decide who will be their best representatives. These candidates have different views and different priorities. While some do connect themselves to the same partisan themes playing out across the country, almost all of what they do won’t be about party affiliation, but about local representation.
Even if disgusted by the negative ads, we urge people to vote. Participating in elections enhances and supports our democracy.