FED UP WITH A LACK OF CIVILITY IN POLITICS?
The Osgood File. Sponsored in part by Liftmaster Garage Door Openers. Use your smartphone to open or close your garage doors anytime from anywhere. This is Charles Osgood.
The political pros who've been advising candidates at every level have insisted that negative campaigning - doing and saying everything you can to tear down your opponent - is the way to go.
Getting angry, they say, is better than explaining what you'd do. That's why we hear so much of it, irritating though it may be. But a new Marist-Knights of Columbus poll is picking up a new sort of frustration out there...
SOT - Carl Anderson, CEO of the Knights of Columbus
"People are beginning to see, I think, a connection between the negative campaigning - which makes it impossible for then these individuals to sit down at a table to find solutions together." (:10)
Carl Anderson is CEO of the Knights of Columbus. More from him after this...
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The kind of gridlock that has been paralyzing the country may just be an extension of the negative campaigning idea that demonizing your opponent is the only way to win.
This new poll suggests that voters may now be thinking of voting against the negativity.
SOT - Carl Anderson
"78 percent of Americans are frustrated today by the tone of our political discourse - and 64 percent believe that negative campaigning is harming our political process." (:11)
Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus says that there is an awareness now that voting for the most negative Congressional candidates is going to produce, in time, the most acrimonious and destructive - rather than productive - kind of Congress.
And they're also afraid that's what's happening now in the current campaigning will produce that.
SOT - Carl Anderson
"66 percent believe that candidates spend more time criticizing their opponents than addressing the issues - and that 74 percent believe that political campaigns have become more negative over time." (:12)
Could that in itself be an issue?
SOT - Carl Anderson
"The negative advertising obviously is a big issue. The SuperPACs are another big issue. But, we have to take the first step as voters and as the public and say: 'Look, enough is enough...'" (:11)
The Osgood File. This is Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network. |
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