An Open Letter to Our Elected Officials

Dear Politician,

Congratulations on being elected Governor, Senator, Assembly-person, Comptroller, etc. You have won your position by running some of the dirtiest campaigns in memory. The media tells me that statistics say running negative campaigns against your opponent works. Here’s my take on the television ads, radio spots and print media I received during this race: once again I feel like I had to choose between the lesser of two evils. I ended up not liking either one of the major two-party candidates. If your ads can be believed, and I’m sure they can’t, you were both disreputable, lying cheats who would lead us down the path of destruction. Thanks for instilling this confidence in my government. (This is sarcasm. You are so inured to it, you may not have recognized it.)

Did you make any campaign promises? I don’t recall. If there were any, they were lost in the back-stabbing and name-calling you unleashed on your opponent. It’s just as well, because I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter what you promise or say you want to do. You won’t do it. So I guess it is a better tactic to just attack and let the other candidate tell us what you’ll do that won’t be good for us. The promises that you do make don’t make sense. How can you cut taxes, increase spending, give us more services and still make the budget work? In short you can’t. But it is political suicide to tell us you’re going to increase our taxes, take away services and make us suffer more in order to get our great-great-great grandchildren out of debt. Although I doubt you are seriously concerned about the deficit, whether it be state or national. And quite frankly, we probably aren’t either. We want jobs. We want a reasonable economy where we don’t have to mortgage our future for today’s commodities. We’ve already lost our homes and savings. We dare not risk more.

Let me think: it’s been a week and a half since the election. It’s about time to start campaigning for your next term in office, isn’t it? It really doesn’t seem to matter though. Albany is run by New York City. The State government can be ground to a halt again if they don’t like what Upstate wants. Why don’t you encourage New York City to secede from the State? They can become their own little empire, controlling our money, while the rest of the State can control whether or not New York City eats. Sounds like a fair exchange to me. Think about it.

We’re not stupid ladies and gentlemen. We’re just apathetic. We just don’t care much anymore about who wins or loses a race. In our eyes, you are all pretty much the same, just touting different slogans designed to draw in voters of one persuasion or another. And that’s a crying shame. This country was built on true leadership and a population who wanted fairness and guidance. We’ve all lost our way. But, hey, congratulations on two, three, or four more years, depending on your political office, of politicking, maneuvering and posturing. I don’t expect much from you. Do me a favor: disappoint my expectations.

A Disgruntled Constituent