Just Say "No!" to Cynicism!

So, who is paying close attention to the political primaries? Anyone made up their mind yet? I certainly haven’t; I usually like to reserve judgment until the parties have picked their candidates. No sense getting attached to anyone this early in the game. I think our system of voting has the unintended consequence of forcing us to turn tiny distinctions between candidates into grand canyons of dissimilarity. One good way of thinking about it, particularly if you would like to minimize the amount of cynicism in your life, is to make a list of all the candidates currently in the race who you don’t hate. Instead of just picking one candidate, try to stay open-minded about all the candidates who you think could probably do the job admirably enough. The truth is, there is no way to know who will be great and who will only be okay. This is further complicated by the fact that there is no way to know in advance what kind of problems or crises the next president will have to deal with. Maybe you love one candidate for his domestic policy and know he would be a kick-ass president in that sphere, but what if Syria and Iran go to war, could he handle the fall-out from that? No way to know for sure. Every candidate has strengths and weaknesses. So keep your list as long as possible and try to be reasonable instead of emotional.