This is a day and age that every word is dissected. With that comes challenges to find out what words matter and what words don’t.

Every sentence is scrutinized. Every message is torn apart. How can a political message stand on it’s on in this day of new media and messaging? How can any message for that matter?

Subtleties are important, I really do believe this, but it appears that being subtle isn’t an option anymore. When news sources like the aggregator The Huffington Post has Kanye and Kim on the front page (doesn’t cost them anything) and the never ending side-boob story, we lose. We lose because policy matters. We lose because subtle doesn’t work anymore, which I wrote about last weekend. What ends up happening is this message about government and political importance is swept away.

You only have a moment.

It’s important to be consistent in thought and action when a politician is running for office. It’s also important to be graceful under pressure, something we haven’t seen much this week if you put Summerville and Hurley in the equation.

It goes both ways to both parties. And with so many voters on the fence these days it is best to say what you mean and mean what you say to quote Dr. Seuss.

Attack politics have been around since the beginning of time. That isn’t going away but there are ways to educate with facts. Holding politicians accountable is important but it is coming down to citizens doing it as much as newspapers who used to have the traditional role of watchdogs. That isn’t the case as it once was because mainstream media is a business and money is the key. Independent professional media does, to be fair, still seem to be throwing fisticuffs and that is good news.

So, I offer you some very good voices to go and visit this weekend if you have a few moments that I haven’t link to (other than Laura) before. They aren’t all political, but their voices are strong and clear.

• Laura Creekmore has a post on being a woman in 2012 and what this election cycle means. LINK
• Like The Dew might give you some food for thought not only on politics but Southern culture. LINK
• Nooga has a really good site worth many looks which has a variety of writers and guest columnists. It’s not partisan, discusses culture as well as quality of life in Chattanooga and it is consistent. LINK
• Nancy Van Reece combines a great deal of different things you might want to keep your eye on. LINK