With all of the candidates for Congress putting the final touches on their campaigns, America is watching as November and the election come into view. In California, it is as if people can smell the congressional race coming. Van Tran, the Republican candidate for Congress, has taken his ads to the next level in Orange County – sending out scratch and sniff ads.

The perfume ad-like mailings, targeting Tran’s opponent Loretta Sanchez say, “Something Smells Rotten about Loretta. It’s the stench of Washington” with small font reading, “Your Free Fragrance Sample” above a scratch and sniff square adorned with Benjamin Franklin’s hundred-dollar bill face. The odor is garbage-like. It is almost as if Tran’s campaign against the current congresswoman, Democrat Loretta Sanchez, is just trying to say that she simply “stinks” in office.

It’s high school student election drama all over again.

Sanchez responded, according to KABC in Los Angeles, by saying that the smelly ad “…is disgusting. We’re trying to talk about the issues in the race and he’s sending out smelly things.” A district resident, Dave Koffman, responded to the ad with, “Smells pretty bad.”

So what’s so rotten in the 47th district of California? After all, most politicians call their opponents far worse things than “smelly” in today’s elections. Seeing the headline in the paper or getting the ad in the mail are great conversation pieces, not to mention interactive.

As time goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that many Americans don’t know a whole lot about the people in their offices. Besides the privacy and a front that politicians put up, how many people really take the time to gain a tremendous amount of knowledge about the candidates running for different races within their district, their state, or even their country? This makes ads like Tran’s unfortunately effective on voter opinions.

Regardless of political association or the personal track records either of Sanchez or Tran, these ads are ruining the discussions about real issues. If elections come down to who has sent out the funniest mail, then it really is like high school. Whoever hands out the most stickers or pins or invites you to the coolest party is the person you vote for.

More than ever, these types of campaign techniques are becoming the norm on the political scene. Obviously, politics was never a clean sport, but this is a bit extreme.

What happened to the ideal we all looked up to? The enthralling debates, the ads with a strong voice and answers to real questions, and the days when we all knew voters had made informed decisions. There was no trashy junk mail, or junk mail that smelled like trash. What happened to the times when only simple, honest candidates were running fair and truthful campaigns?

Did we ever have that?

Regardless of the answer, we are in the age where this type of mail is happening and campaigns are becoming increasingly shallow. There are too many instances where people are misinformed. There are too many instances of influential people encouraging misinformation. As Americans on the receiving end of this media, we are subjected to it

We will never have a nation where every single registered voter will make an informed decision about everything they vote for, but the encouragement of acquiring knowledge is important. Every American citizen over the age of 18 should vote, but when they do, they should know how powerful their vote really is.

One uninformed person may seem like nothing, but an entire nation? That is truly something to consider.

Alison Bowler is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].