November Madness by Mo Rocca at Huffington Post

[applegrove]

November Madness
by Mo Rocca
Huffington Post
Oct 25th, 2006

"If American political campaigns were all about dry wonky issues like social security reform or deficit reduction, well then, fewer than a quarter of voting-age Americans would cast ballots during midterm elections. Thank goodness for Hot-button Issues. They're the reason that a whole third of eligible voters will go to the polls on November 7th.

Hot-button issues get voters emotional, frenzied, bloodthirsty. Gas Prices, Prayer in School, Rush Limbaugh's physical comedy: these are the topics that can make even the staunchest opponents of the Death Penalty go postal. Early on in our republic these issues included taxes on Whiskey and the gold standard. The hot button issues of yesteryear seem like much ado about nothing. (With the exception of slavery. That really was a pretty big deal.) Exit polls, controversial in their own right, will rank the importance of these controversial issues after the fact. But how seriously can we take them? "Poll- tested politics" didn't even qualify to play.

.......... SNIP"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mo-rocca/november-madness_b_32511.html