Take a break from politics

November 7 is just over a month away, but the weekend is here and we'd like to take a break from politics.

Oh if it were only so easy.

After 30 seconds or so of surfing and finding nothing interesting on the tube, we remember there's hope by turning to TVLand. Stepping back into time via a black and white episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" is one of today's best stress relievers. Ironically Friday night's episode was the one that pitted Barney and Andy as opponents in the sheriff's race.

The competition began when Andy, who had been sheriff of Mayberry since the beginning of time, decided not to file for re-election because he was anticipating a job offer that would take him to Raleigh. So he encourages Barney to run. Andy's job offer falls through, but the filing period was over. Barney organizes a write-in campaign to re-elect Andy. The write-in campaign is going well, too well. When Andy asks Goober to tell everyone that buys gas at the filling station about the write-in campaign, Goober says everyone already knows about it. And Barney asks, "Well, what about the ones that were going to vote for me?" Goober matter-of-factly tells Barney there were not any.

His ego insulted, Barney abandons the effort to re-elect Andy and pushes his campaign full speed ahead. He challenges Andy to a debate. Now, if you are fans of anything Mayberry, you know there are no crime and very little need for emergency equipment and strict enforcement of traffic laws. However, Barney marches to the podium with a briefcase of 76 documents of malfeasance and chooses to highlight only three. Like the modern day politicians he chose to point out only the negative aspects of Andy's tenure as sheriff. He never offered a solution or gave any reasons why the citizens of Mayberry should vote for him - only reasons why they should not vote for Andy.

The story is as plain in black and white as it is in 256 million-bit color. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Why do politicians continue to use negative advertising?

Because it works. It grabs our attention much quicker than a list of someone's accomplishments. Perhaps the plethora of negativity is a reflection of a common thread of our society. Think - when was the last time you called a friend to relay a message about someone's positive accomplishment? The juicy stuff beckons us more quickly to conversation.

We liken campaign negativity to the grocery store tabloids. They exist because there is a market for them. And as long as society pays attention to the negative campaigning it will exist. We challenge both society and politicians to bury this market.