Countdown to a year of disillusion

Those of us who love the give and take of politics should be excited about a presidential election year, but I view 2012 with as much fear as anticipation, and not because the Mayan calendar runs out.

What has me worried is the prospects for perhaps the nastiest presidential election of the modern media era, at least in some parts of the country.

Fortunately, Connecticut will miss much of the ugliest campaigning. With few electoral votes and likely to be safely in Obama's column, this state will not be targeted for big TV commercial buys. But voters in swing states - such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida - will be wishing for an OxiClean commercial just to get a break from campaign ads that will be anything but clean.

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that twisted logic, judicial precedent and constitutional law to equate money with free speech, outside groups will have no restrictions on the amount of cash spent on TV campaign commercials. Very few will be positive. Their aim will be to tear down the other guy and facts won't get in the way. By the time the political marketing operatives finish destroying the reputations of the two guys running for president, most people, particularly in those swing states, will conclude neither one deserves the job.

This is essentially what is wrong with our democracy, at least at the highest levels. It is no longer about a clash of ideas. It's about who can put together the most effective 30-second commercials. Yes, many people will take the time to actually read platforms, understand the issues and consider the records of the candidates. But too many, certainly enough to swing the election, will find themselves influenced by the same commercial pitches that help them decide what cereals to buy and shampoo to use.

The victims and beneficiaries of this process will likely be President Obama and Mitt Romney.

Despite some isolated calls for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to run, no Democrat has any interest in challenging the president like Sen. Ted Kennedy challenged President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Meanwhile, Republicans will do what they always do (with perhaps the exception of choosing Barry Goldwater in 1964). In early primaries the conservative base will flirt with candidates they consider more ideologically pure, then the party leadership will rally around the guy who can get votes from the moderate center and the party faithful will fall in line. This year, Romney is that guy.

Despite what their critics may say, these will be two impressive candidates.

President Obama did not achieve his astronomical rise to the White House without being a great politician. Ironically, foreign policy, considered Obama's weak point in 2008, will this time be a strength for the incumbent. Unfortunately for the president, voters don't typically decide elections on foreign policy. It's the economy. Enough said.

Romney, meanwhile, has been successful in both business and politics and has been running for president for at least six years. He also ran a Winter Olympics. Romney will make the argument that his business mind is what the country needs to fix the economy.

Yet those commercials drilling into the heads of Americans will attempt to reduce both candidates to caricatures.

Obama will be the tax-loving, ultra-liberal who shoved a big-government health plan down our collective throats, killed the economy, pursued socialism and seeks to create a permanent welfare state.

Romney will be the multi-millionaire caring only about the 1 percent, a corporate raider who shipped American jobs overseas and will protect his fellow moneyed Wall Street marauders; a no-good flip-flopper who can't be trusted.

As I said, who is going to be happy voting for those guys?

Paul Choiniere is the editorial page editor.

Paul Choiniere