Triple-dog dare? We must be smart about candidates

Lately, every trip to the mailbox and every touch of the television remote remind me that it is election time again in Georgia. Additionally, the colorful campaign mailers and 30-second high-definition ads of most of the Republican candidates also are causing me to recall one of my favorite movies — “A Christmas Story.”

Whenever I receive a mailer from a GOP candidate — no matter what the office, from county commissioner to governor — the famous flagpole scene with Ralphie, Flick and friends readily comes to mind. You remember, that is where Flick’s “friends” dare him, double-dog dare him, and finally triple-dog dare him to put his tongue on a frozen flagpole.

So intent are Republican candidates to prove that they are the most conservative of all the candidates that they sound a lot like Flick’s buddies. “I am a conservative,” says one. “Well, I am a double conservative,” implies another. “So what, I am a double-dog conservative,” brags still another. And then, not to be outdone, “I am a triple-dog conservative,” says yet another.

It isn’t enough for Republican candidates to use the word “conservative” once or twice in an ad. That might leave the impression that they are nothing but “wimpy” conservatives. The mailer of one GOP candidate for governor utilizes the word “conservative” seven times, and I am certain that his does not lead the pack in that category.

Having been involved in political campaigns and political advertising, I certainly understand why Republican candidates feel the need to tout their conservative credentials at a time when the party has moved far to the right along the political spectrum.

However, GOP voters — even those who consider themselves conservative — need to look beyond (and behind) the self-proclaimed labels to determine exactly what the candidates mean by all of this conservative bragging.

Is a candidate an economic conservative or a social conservative (or both)? If the candidate claims to be an economic conservative, does he or she favor lower taxes or balanced budgets or have a magic formula to do both? If he is a social conservative, does he favor a constitutional separation of church and state or “putting God and prayer back in our schools”? What exactly does each candidate mean by this overused term? In a field in which every candidate claims to be a conservative, does the term really have any meaning at all?

It has been fascinating to watch the differences in the television ads of Democratic and Republican candidates. Every Republican candidate claims to be “conservative,” while no Democrats ever mention the word “liberal.”

However, the Democrats do mention education and what they propose to do to improve public schools, while Republicans so far have focused a lot on being conservative and a little on the state’s economic woes and how to stimulate job creation. (Can you say “lower taxes”?)

Hopefully, as we get closer to Election Day, we will learn more about the GOP candidates beyond their self-proclaimed labels. At a time when Georgia’s economy and revenues continue to falter, our public schools face serious problems such as increasing class size and a reduction in school days, and real estate sales and prices continue to drop, I want to know what the candidates really think about the state’s problems and what ideas they have to address them.

Admittedly, the problems we face are much more complex than any candidate can address meaningfully in a mailer or television ad, but surely they can do better than throw meaningless labels at us and assume that we will be satisfied.

Hopefully, we are smarter than Flick. You remember what happened to him on a triple-dog dare. He was left all alone with his tongue stuck to a frozen flagpole while his “friends” sat in a warm classroom claiming not to have any idea where he was. Perhaps they were just being “conservative” in how they dealt with the situation.