Leaves are changing, it’s getting cold(er) and dark(er) earlier and we’re nearing election day of 2006. Senators and congressmen, as well as future presidential candidates, are beginning to amass your (or your parents’) funds for an election.

Honestly, in the past, I simply haven’t cared. But at this point in time (and my life) a certain fact is continuously coming back to haunt me: it’s no longer about what the candidate says, it’s about how many people they say it to.

It’s not that we’re sheep or that we blindly follow authority, because it’s arguable that never before have there been as many conflicts among partisan politicians, both between parties and within their own, as there are right now. It’s that politics has become an advertising campaign. Just follow the simple rules and you’ll worm your way (and your name) into the election booths of America.

Rule #1: Kiss a lot of babies.

Rule #2: Don’t get caught with little boys/girls in compromising positions.

Rule #3: Say whatever it takes.

And those that don’t get the press, get the shaft.

For example, think about the advertising campaigns of the 2004 elections. Because of partisan politics, as well as ill-thought-out campaign finance laws, we voted a president into office whose actions have left us with a country divided, disillusioned and, slowly but surely, destroying itself from the inside out. To say we could have chosen a better candidate is a severe understatement.

Something that I think happens too often to us in life, as well as too often to us as a country, is that we have trouble examining our own mistakes in a productive way. Instead of learning from our mistakes we repeat them. Let me provide a quick rundown: yesterday’s Vietnam is today’s Iraq and tomorrow’s Iran, yesterday’s stock market crash is today’s Enron and tomorrow’s Halliburton and yesterday’s Nixon is today’s George Bush … and if we’re not careful, any number of other names tomorrow.

However, we, as the new wave of adults in America, have a substantial amount of control over this. Let’s just hope we can hold on to it.