BY SHARON MARTIN

We’ve chosen our candidates in state primaries, so why do we even need conventions? Seems like a waste of good money to me. Maybe it fires up the party faithful, but aren’t those votes secure already? It might be entertainment, at least, if it all weren’t just so scary.

In the first round of speeches at the RNC, Rick Santorum said that President Obama had gutted work requirements for welfare. Now, Politifact had already rated this statement as “pants on fire” when Gov. Romney said it, and FactCheck.org agreed that it was incorrect. That didn’t stop Artur Davis from repeating the same lie in the very next speech.

When confronted with the lies, pollster Neil Newhouse said, “Fact checkers come with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”

Perhaps the award for most lies in a single speech goes to Paul Ryan. He accused President Obama of ignoring the recommendations of the Simpson/Bowles Commission that he, a member of the commission, voted against. The recommendations never made it out of committee for an up or down vote.

And he blamed President Obama for S&P’s downgrading of American debt, although S&P blamed the shenanigans in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives where Ryan serves.

After the convention, Ryan even lied about his time in a marathon he ran.

The whole theme of the Elephant Show was based on a line taken out of context, a rebuttal to President Obama who told a crowd that business owners rely on infrastructure built with our tax dollars. Taking things out of context for the sake of argument is a tool both parties use. So are cute little plays on words that play to the base.

The whole show has left me feeling pretty cynical about our electoral system. I’ve made up my mind already, based on issues that I care about. Perhaps I should just save myself some grief and quit listening.

Wait! Maybe that’s what they want us all to do. With enough apathy on voters’ parts, maybe the party who serves only a small portion of the population can win by turning off the masses.

Before I’m accused of being biased [I am!], understand that I’ll be fact-checking the DNC, too. What’s good for the elephant is good for the donkey.

But the whole money-laden, lie-riddled campaign season can’t be good for us, the American people. We need to stand up and demand the truth.

– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer