Changing Their Tune

I think next to the definition of "knee jerk reaction" should be the picture of the 2008 presidential candidates. This week as it became more evident that our economy is in a down turn the media started to turn their attention away from the election and more onto the economy. To not be outdone by Washington each candidate immediately released their "stimulus" plan. It was almost comical to see the sound bites back to back from each candidate saying, "and today I am releasing my economic stimulus plan." Like each of them had the answers to all of our problems in a simple plan. One by one like dominoes as soon as John McCain released his plan everyone was announcing theirs as fast as they could. Most of these plans were rushed together and were not revolutionary what-so-ever. At least Edwards' plan did not involve giving money to everyone. I am not saying that before this week the economy was not an issue. However, before this week there was little talk about the economy and a lot of talk about non issues. Maybe we should be glad that finally we are getting some concrete details on how the candidates would make the changes they talk about non stop. Change has been the number one word used for all of the candidates but there are very few details on how they will make these changes. Not even on their websites are there a lot of these details. Campaigns have become more about the candidate and less about the issues. The result is a popularity contest and not a contest of qualifications.