I Approve This Message...

Election Day is 37 days away and honestly, it can't come soon enough. I'm not anxious because I want to know whether Harry Reid will still be Majority Leader of the Senate or who will be the next governor of California or if Lisa Murkowski can win as a write-in candidate. I care about those races but that's not my motivation. Nope, my desire is purely selfish. I'm counting down to Election Day so that I can get my TV back. I am sick of campaign ads. When my 3yo is telling me she loves Harry Reid because he approved this message or is reciting Sharron Angle's position on Social Security, I know the flood has turned into a tidal wave. I swear, she doesn't get to watch that much TV!

As a former campaign staffer and sometime campaign consultant, I cannot tune out the ads. It's like a car wreck -- I have to watch. But I am tired of all the noise and frankly, all the distortions. No one is immune and the flurry of accusations is flying so quickly that it's impossible for the ad watch folks to keep up. You really have to pay close attention to the legitimate political coverage to be able to decipher fact from fiction. And while you would be hard pressed to find a voter who says they listen to attack ads, there's no denying they work. And that disconnect has always puzzled me. Everyone says they want to know what candidates are about and vote on issues but campaigns are won based on name recognition and driving your opponent's negative perception numbers up.

Between the two-year slugfest that was the 2008 presidential campaign and the 2010 campaigns that started in 2009, it feels like we now live in a never ending election cycle. And it's exhausting listening to this much negativity. I'm ready for it to end, if only for a few weeks until we start chattering about 2012. Still I can't help but wonder what it would take to change the dialogue. If we don't like listening to attacks, then why are they so effective?