When an American politician's lips are moving....

October 7, 2012

When a politician's lips are moving ...

We rapidly approach an important decision point for voters. The presidential race appears to be too close to call, no matter what you read, see or hear from any source. It seems two critical tipping points will be the debates and overall voter turnout, and most pundits suggest the latter is especially so for Barack Obama.

The spin doctors for both parties are out in full force, trying every trick in the book to influence your decision. The political machines and the super PACs are spending obscene amounts of money. No matter how you receive information, you are going to be supplied with biased answers. 

There's an old joke: How do you know when a politician is lying? Answer: His lips are moving. This is more significant today than it has ever been because, using every possible form of media, the truth-spinning process has expanded and improved dramatically. Political campaign machines launder every tidbit of information, using polling survey results, to ensure that information shared matches up precisely with what intended target audiences want to hear.

The number of political polling organizations, with trustworthy-sounding names, has also dramatically expanded. How can a voter decide which ones to believe? With a bit of research, you will learn some are indeed unbiased, but even a cursory examination will show others are clearly aimed to favor one or the other party. We then hear news show hosts telling us how this or that poll is more or less biased than others. It remind me of the uncomfortable feeling we get in our gut when someone tells us "And I'm not

lying" just before telling us something.

We see multiple news stories saying the economy is improving. Then we see stories saying just the opposite. These usually contain just enough valid information to allow them to barely pass the smell test. But, if evaluated

more carefully, with a skeptical perspective, the biased influence intent clearly shows.

For example, on Sept. 25, a front-page story appeared in this newspaper from The Associated Press, headlined: "Americans are more confident in the economy than they have been in seven months." I read it carefully because I wanted to see in which parallel universe this writer lived. Clearly it is not from anywhere in the America I'm familiar with. The writer went on to say, just in case the intended reader was too stupid to get the story's intention, "This is an encouraging sign for President Barack Obama." 

The story quoted a person living in Washington, D.C. (surprise) and working for the government (surprise) saying: "Well, my 401(k) has improved, and housing prices around here are improving, and I feel like things are stabilizing." Even this person stated, in the conclusion of the story, that he was deferring his voting decision. Maybe, I thought, he is just waiting to hear from his bureaucratic bosses about who to support based on the likely winner. After all, it's not considered a good fundamental career practice to back a loser in D.C. The story concluded with: "Polling evidence indicates that Obama leads Romney in several important swing states."

Two days later, with a completely opposite conclusion, a news release from a conservative group called Americans for Limited Government stated: "The economy is continuing to falter as 2nd Quarter GDP revised downward to

1.3 percent by the government's Commerce Department." This release went on: "Suspicion existed indicating the previous report had been manipulated on purpose to inflate the results." The concluding sentence was: "Today's

report shows that the Obama economy continues to weaken, which is terrible news for those who were hoping to enter the holiday season with a new job and renewed hope."

These are only two examples of the many stories being shown by mainstream media that go beyond simple reporting and are aimed instead toward voter influence.

We are observing the continuation of decades of politics as usual by both sides, which has gotten our nation into such deep trouble. Fellow columnist LeRoy Goldman and I started an organization called Citizens Against Politics As Usual a year ago to try to fight back. If you have the time and inclination, please visit our website at capau.org to see what we believe and

why. I recently added a two-part self-shot video. Let me know what you think — but please understand we don't supply popcorn. :-)

The short version of our message: Don't ever participate in another poll.

Change your voter registration to independent. 

Vote against all incumbents for the next few election cycles. 

No spin needed here. We all know D.C. has

become so corrupted that the only logical choice is to fire the lot and start over. Unlike the NFL, the replacements cannot be any worse.

Most important of all: When you read/hear/see anything pertaining to any campaign from any source, always try to imagine the message is being delivered by a real politician. That way, as the imaginary politician's lips are moving, you will be reminded that it's a lot of politically spun BS!

Caveat emptor!

These are my opinions. What about yours? 

Please Visit:  Citizens Against Politics As usual

Contact Me:  Mike Tower