It’s 2010, and just last week, the country elected Congress. This year, like every year really, the gloves of the candidates came off. The insults flew left and right. The commercial spots between moments of Glee were filled with left and right slighted promotions and attack ads from one candidate to the other. The election seemed less and less appealing with every “I’m a hopeful Congress-person, and I approve this message.” It’s no wonder that there was such a low expected turn-out of voters our age.

This is the generation that gave cat-fights a new name; that lives in the world of Jersey Shore and Gossip Girl; that sees hostility everywhere they look. Politicians seem to be out of touch with the cares of this generation. Attack ads aren’t what help them decide. They just remind them of things that aren’t working as it is. People hardly like to pick winners in fights among their own friends. To pick between a candidate these days is like trying to pick which of two rotten oranges you are going to eat.

And it wasn’t just this year- although it did seem to be the epitome of slanderous campaigning- that these spotty ads. Every election it seems that the candidates think that the voters base their decision on which candidate has the most degrading argument, so they set out to put together a media campaign of “Person X voted with the Other Side 9-out-of-10 times” and “Person Y takes bribes, stifles tax payers and wants to eliminate freedom.” They seem so out of touch with this generation that they don’t know how to get us to work for them. Word of mouth works these days, but if all that people have to say about a candidate is the bad things that others have said, the conversation remains short- if existing at all.

Campaigning is a cut throat thing. People understand that. It is hard for a candidate to separate their platform and ideals without cutting down the other side. Political scientists say that there needs to be a higher turn out of young voters. All that candidates have to do is engage them, but instead they choose to overload them with negative attack ads. Young voters would come out if the campaigns would appeal to their sense of logic, not their willingness to engage in a fight.

It is hard to pick who to vote for these days, and attack ads don’t make the process any easier. They get in the way of informing voters of the issues and how a candidate is going to address problems.

With the stigma that surrounds politicians in Washington these days, you would think that candidates would be going out of their way to show that they are here to debate ideas, not talk about the other guy.