In theory, right now should be an exciting time to be living in Iowa. In the last few weeks, every major candidate for the presidency has made a stop in our fair state.

And yet, little seems to be different as you look around. I haven’t been privy to any heated debates, or even any passing conversations on the subject of the presidential race.

The reason for this is simple: The most successful campaigns are the ones that tell us what we want to hear, don’t require too much thought and lull us to sleep.

How could anyone be a passionate advocate for any of the major candidates in the coming election? Most of them would rather rely on “down-home values” and other meaningless propaganda than on any kind of ideas. Among the worst of these is Elizabeth Dole.

Watching Dole talk to the media is like watching an episode of the Donna Reed show on acid. The freaky part is that it’s really happening.

When Dole announced her candidacy, she summarized her platform by saying “It is essential that the next president return honesty and integrity to the government, restore our public schools to greatness, reduce taxes and strengthen our national defense while waging a crusade against the scourge of drugs.”

What a wishy-washy load of crap. When are candidates going to start making some realistic predictions about things they might actually be able to affect. How the hell is Dole going to return our public schools to greatness? They were never all that “great” in the first place.

But rather than come clean about hard truths like that, Dole and her ilk opt instead to hearken back to the good ol’ days. By conjuring up images of a glorious past that we might just be able to get back to, they lull the American people to sleep, and blind them to the real issues.

Granted, that’s an easy shot for me to sling from here. After all, what are the “real issues?” I’ll tell you this, they don’t involve “waging a crusade against the scourge of drugs.”

I admit I’m picking on Dole, mostly because she scares the living hell out of me. But all of the front-runners are guilty of waging an extensive campaign against nothing in particular.

George W. Bush is currently the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Can somebody tell me why? What are these revolutionary ideas of his that have all these people behind him? The truth is the only thing that Bush is doing is looking good and not stepping on anyone’s toes.

The top story on George W. Bush’s Web-site is about his visit to the Boys and Girls Club of Seattle, where he discussed the importance of mentoring programs.

Although Bush commended the program as “a great example of corporate and individual responsibility,” he really didn’t show why on earth he is responsible for, or even related to, the program’s success.

The end of the article did mention that Bush launched another program that involved mentoring in Texas, but what the hell does that have to do with anything?

It just goes to show you, you don’t even need a real platform to be a major political player in this country. All you really need is a series of well-staged public relations stunts.

We’re so used to our sad little two-party system in this country that it’s all we can imagine. We’re used to our candidates feeding us watered-down policy ideas and calling them reforms.

That’s why almost no one’s talking about the election. What’s there to talk about? It’s just a re-run of every presidential election that I can remember.

“Who are you voting for, Skip?”

“Well, Lester, I’m voting for that candidate that’s for education, and more severe punishment for criminals, and a better future for our children.”

Can you tell what candidate Lester is voting for? Of course not — it could be any of them.

Every candidate spits out the same meaningless garbage and his supporters hoot and holler like he’s some kind of revolutionary.

It’s the same dog-and-pony show every four years, or maybe the same elephant-anddonkey show. But no matter how much we knock it, it’s what works.

If there is no candidate out there with any ideas beyond lukewarm business as usual, what is the point of even electing a president? We could just as easily build a robot to do the job.

Mathematicians could program it so it would never make any radical decisions, and engineers could give it the manual dexterity to shake hands. Beyond that, what does any other president do?

Based on the current campaigns of the front-runners, there’s no reason to believe that any of them will be much better than a lovable robot named Bolex.

They peddle their images with less shame than the average boy-band.

In this country a good campaign is a winning campaign, plain and simple.

And the best way to position yourself at the top of the polls is to sell yourself as a person of integrity and sidestep as many issues as possible.

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Ben Godar is a senior in sociology from Ames. He is arts & entertainment editor for the Daily.