VICKSBURG - The problem with how political campaigns wind up in exchanges of bumper-sticker quips is that most political matters are neither simple nor partisan.
Take Social Security as just one example.
For generations, Congress has been spending cash paid into the program by workers and employers as fast or faster than the money has been deposited. Picture a bucket with a hole in it big enough to let every drop of water drain out as soon as it is poured in. That's what you've got with Social Security today.
Now picture the same bucket with a larger hole and less water being poured in - because the pace of retirements is outpacing the pace of new employment - and the situation is pretty clear: What had been merely a losing proposition is poised to become a lost proposition.
The bucket has been patched in the past and will be in the future, but it's not something a Democrat can fix and a Republican can't or the other way around. Either more money has to be paid in or less money has to be paid out - or both. If Bush or Kerry has mentioned that, I missed it.
Take international terrorism as another example.
The visceral hatred that drives maniacs like Osama bin Laden doesn't fluctuate based on whether a Republican or a Democrat is serving in the White House. If John Kerry had been standing on top of a World Trade Center tower on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Osama's reaction would not have been, "Oops, we killed the wrong guy!"
The open societies of the Western World are seen as an abomination by radical Muslims, who see our culture as a threat due to its permissiveness and our support for the existence of Israel as an assault on their Arabic heritage.
Further, no compromise is possible with people who fly planes into buildings, behead those they know are innocent of any wrongdoing and strap bombs to their own children and urge them to delay detonation until they reach crowded places.
But despite all this, note that for several election cycles we've heard very few words spoken by presidential candidates that were not tested ahead of time by focus groups.
Election careerists assemble rooms full of citizens, give them lunch and $40 or so. The citizens listen to phrases while holding little gizmos that look like video game controllers. They turn a knob one direction when they hear a message they like and the other direction when they hear something they don't.
As aide-turned-journalist George Stephanopoulos wrote in his book, "All Too Human," about working for Bill Clinton, the president would have meetings to practice his smiles and to receive guidance on how to shake hands.
Then out on the campaign trail, it's form over substance. The idea is to convey or evoke an emotion - admiration or fear, suspicion or trust - rather than broker ideas.
It's not that the candidates are dumb or really believe they have magic solutions that will balance the budget while lowering taxes. It's just that they know they won't have any effect on setting or steering public policy unless or until they get elected - and they've turned themselves over to the James Carvilles and Karl Roves of the world for effective packaging. Rule 1 is to get a message that sells. There is no Rule 2.
With increasing partisanship, there's also this seeming reality: Whatever a Democrat does, a Republican must oppose. The opposite is also true. If, for instance, George Bush had decided to invest the billions being spent on the war in Iraq on halting genocide in Africa, do you think for one second that John Kerry wouldn't have drilled him for making the wrong choice?
The too-long, too-expensive, too-shallow electoral process to which voters are subjected in this country is lamentable in many, many ways.
But somehow or another, it continues to work - even in its present incarnation that often involves lawyers and judges in what should be the simple process of counting votes cast by qualified electors.
The reason it works is probably because the people - at least a good number of the people - can and do see past the bumper stickers and the slogans.
The country works because of the people whose faith remains steadfast in the face of distractions and diversions of every sort imaginable.
May it always be so.
