Campaigning is over — thank goodness

Thank God we are just days from the end of the primary election cycle. As a voter, I am tired of candidates who accuse, point fingers and criticize their perceived enemies — many times with baseless, pointless arguments.

Instead of focusing on their proposals, policies or political points of view, most prefer to attack rivals, presumably thinking this will attract undecided voters to their side or even naively hoping it will pull some voters from across the fence.

I personally don’t think these attacks will make voters vote for the most aggressive candidate.

It’s even possible they will make voters stay away from polling sites.

At best, this type of tactic makes followers more faithful to their own candidate. But nothing else than that.

Of course, I am by no means demanding a prohibition against campaigning.

It would go against our Constitution and would be a violation of First Amendment rights.

That would go against my own views on democracy, politics and freedom of speech. But candidates must behave responsibly while exercising their political rights and reaching out to voters.

Back in the day, dirty campaigning was limited somewhat by the availability of print, radio and television coverage.

Nowadays with easy access to social media platforms, people can easily open a new account and a page on almost any social media site and comfortably begin their mud-throwing from anonymity.

With that, the responsible party washes his or her hands while still impacting someone else’s campaign — with the advantage of facing almost no consequences.

It’s bad enough when lurkers in the shadows play this game, but when candidates leap headlong into this ugliness, it’s embarrassing, especially when all they have to offer is accusations and almost nothing in the way of solutions. Besides, criticizing a popular candidate is akin to criticizing voters themselves. Conventional wisdom in sales is not to try make buyers feel bad about the purchase they’ve made; they’ll only feel insulted. Instead, help them recognize a better purchase.

Rather than focusing efforts on attacks, candidates should be sharing their agenda, standing on issues and offering plans and proposals.

They should be presenting what makes them attractive as candidates rather the trying to prove what’s ugly about their opponents.

If the candidate running for re-election has been a real mess in office and that disaster is well-perceived by voters, perhaps attacks will have an effect on voters.

Otherwise, it can easily be interpreted as a profound lack of substance.

What is even worse, some supporters of the attacking candidates will go after voters who simply ask questions regarding issues or qualifications for office.

The Manichean assumption is that anyone who does not support turns automatically into an enemy.

What happens is that this inquiring voter typically will end up voting for someone else.

Don’t we have already too much violence in this world? Do we really need an electoral system built on verbal abuse?

If candidates plan to run a campaign, please do it in a way that is positive, energetic, informed and focused. We, the undecided, independent voters will appreciate it.