Please Stop Name Dropping

There's two names I wish I could never hear again this election cycle: Bush and Reagan. Usage of either is a cop-out to avoid talking about real issues or specifics and an appeal to emotion that only distracts from the reality of a candidate.

Let's face it, if you're at a point where you adore Bush now, no appeal to how terrible he is will change your mind or change your vote. Unlike the previous election, Bush is not on the ticket. Despite what Sen. Obama would like you to think, Sen. McCain is not Bush. That doesn't mean he is a good candidate or a bad candidate, it just means more time should be spent talking about Obama and McCain. For all the calls of non-partisan politics, I hear Obama use Bush's name as much as any nebulous warm-fuzzy phrase.

All it does is appeal to the crowd that loathes Bush. While it probably gets them all excited to feel good about hating Bush, it doesn't gain Obama any votes and if this country really is going to move on, it needs to start focusing on these two candidates and not the past. Apparently "hope" spends a considerable amount of time dwelling on the past.

Reagan. You can't accuse me of not being an fan of him: of the two books by former elected officials I have sitting at my desk right now, one of them is Reagan's. He did a lot, both good and bad, for this country. None of that matters in this election. Just like Obama wants to appeal to my hatred for Bush falls flat, McCain's (and earlier all the republican candidates) appeal to my love of Reagan will fall flat. It wont get you any votes from Democrats, it wont convince Republicans that you're "conservative enough." It isn't 1980 and the issues we face are very different. Saying "I'm a Reagan Conservative" means nothing unless you qualify that with exactly how and wasting the breath on a sentence about Reagan doesn't help.

Senators, stop name dropping appeals to emotion and just get to the issues.