Today is Election Day. Today, 34 Senate seats are up for grabs and 10 of them are too close to call. Today, 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 36 Governors are being elected. Today is the day that the 2002 campaign season mercifully ends and we can look back at the insanity we were forced to endure.
Last month in New Jersey, Democrat Robert Torricelli decided to pull out of the senate race because he was losing badly in the polls. Although the law did not allow it, the New Jersey Supreme Court permitted the New Jersey Democrats to make a candidate switch late in the contest. Now it is projected that Torricelli's replacement, Frank Lautenberg, will take the seat.
In Montana, Republican senatorial candidate Mike Taylor exited the race after his Democratic rival released an ad implying he was a homosexual. The Republican Party made no attempt to change candidates and Taylor re-entered the race two weeks later.
In the South, former Vice President Al Gore was giving sermons at black churches, which included choir singers in the background and rhythmic, congregational clapping. His racially charged message was that Republicans didn't want to count blacks as people or as voters.
Nationwide, Democrats have set up a complaint line designed for anyone to call in case they feel they were disenfranchised due to voting irregularities. The line is backed by a team of party lawyers eager to initiate the "sue for votes" process.
Then there are the political ads.
Anne Sumers, a congressional candidate from New Jersey, used the sniper shootings to claim that her Republican opponent pushed legislation that helped the sniper kill people.
The Democratic National Party has put out an ad in which a cartoon character of President Bush pushes an old lady down a staircase, in an attempt to show what Bush's plans will do to seniors.
In New York, Republican Representative Felix Grucci lost broad-base support when he released an ad accusing his Democratic opponent of being lax on rape as provost of Southhampton College.
In our own state gubernatorial race, we see ads claiming Republican Matt Salmon wants to steal old ladies' retirement funds and Attorney General Janet Napolitano wants child sex offenders to run loose on the streets.
As insane as this is, it wasn't until Sen. Paul Wellstone's tragic death on Oct. 25, that we saw the heights of election insanity. Since Wellstone died in the midst of a fierce political election, his memorial service was warped into a grotesque political rally, where there was more cheering than mourning.
The service included campaign speeches, calls for Republicans to stop campaigning, group chants and crowd shout-back lines such as "We will win!" When sharp national criticism arose over the ceremony, state Democrats claimed that the service was exactly how Wellstone would have wanted it: partisan and political.
When the crowd summarily booed Wellstone's friend, Republican Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott and when Vice President Dick Cheney's invitation was rescinded for fear his presence would make the crowd uncomfortable, it was, apparently, exactly as Wellstone had wanted it.
When a score of left-wing columnists, including Ted Rall, wrote pieces implying the Bush administration had Wellstone "assassinated" by sabotaging his plane, it was exactly as Wellstone wanted. In the midst of this insanity, Americans must face the shameful fact that transcends it all: these tactics and ploys work on us.
Perhaps this is why we weren't given the constitutional power to elect public officials directly. Our forefathers feared that we as the electorate would be swayed too easily by emotion and passions. It is amazing how right they were.
Abraham Lincoln claimed that we are a "government of the people by the people and for the people," yet it seems that too often the government is the puppet-master, we are the manipulated, and our actions are easily predicted.
We lament the use of dirty ads, but are persuaded by them every election cycle. We complain about choosing the lesser of two evils, yet fewer than five percent of us ever vote for a third party candidate. We grow weary of politicians not telling us where they stand politically, yet when one stands clear and firm on an issue, we line up to knock them down.
We claim that politics are dirty, politicians are corrupt and that the system needs to be cleaned up, yet few of us take the time to actually understand the issues, make an intelligent decision or push for a candidate we really trust. Most Arizona residents won't even vote today.
There is a good chance that there will be political change in this country today, but it is doubtful it will be informed change. We're simply not that intelligent.
At least the insanity will stop, if only for a short time.
Joshua Billar is a chemical engineering graduate. Reach him at joshua.billar@asu.edu.
