We are back! Today after we got home from a long flight, we turned on the TV to watch the debate between all the candidates running for President in Argentina. It was a great discussion and we enjoyed listening to their debate except for Fernandez who is from the Peronist Party. He had a sarcastic tone toward the current President that annoyed me. Fernandez is favored to win this next election and that is why the Argentine peso has been devaluating like crazy which will be a disaster for Argentina if he wins.
As we draw closer to the upcoming elections later this month I am completely amazed and frankly disgusted by the number of negative campaign ads being shown on television toward the current President. I typically enjoy letting the news play on TV while I get dinner ready in the evening so I can keep up with current events, but it’s gotten to the point that the last thing I want to do is turn on the television for fear that I will be listening to yet another negative ad.
The number of negative ads against Macri alone is mind blowing. Here is this nice, classy, professional man running for a second term but the amount of money spent from the opposing party that are throwing into negative ads against him is ridiculous. It is completely out of control. It makes you wonder what they are so afraid of that they would spend that kind of money to try to keep him out of office…just the fact that they are so afraid of having him win alone makes me want to vote for him at this point if I could but frankly I would have voted for him anyway because he is trying so hard to help the Argentines.
It was the same in the U.S. The one thing that turned me off the most was when someone trashed the competition in order to make a sale themselves. I always felt that if your product was good that you didn’t need to do anything but show that product – if your product is good, there is no need to trash the competitor because greatness shows all by itself. My feeling was that if someone felt the need to trash a competitor that they must be doing it to hide a flaw or shortcoming in themselves or their own products, and it was always a huge turnoff for me.
I feel the same way about political figures. Why trash the other candidate? Why spend so much energy talking about anyone else? Why not spend your time just showing who you are and showing what you stand for? Wouldn’t that be a much better use of campaign dollars? Think how much more we would actually know about these candidates if they spent all that airtime telling us what they stand for and what they believe in and what they want to accomplish as our representatives rather than trashing each other!
I have to say that I am really proud of the way Macri is handling the negative ads with such class. That takes a lot because despite the fact he knows they are not true, they still have to hurt.
There are many life lessons from all of this. Don’t trash-talk other people. Don’t spend your time trying to prove your competitor is wrong, rather spend your energy making yourself the best person you can possibly be. Doing that will scream without sound that you are the better person…no words necessary.
No doubt this next election both in Argentina and in Uruguay are going to be intense and only hope for the best.
Con amor,
Vero
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