After all the endless speeches, the overwrought rhetoric and the partisan sniping—funded by more than a billion dollars in campaign contributions that could have been more profitably deployed just about anywhere else—Decision 2012 is finally over.
The American electorate has spoken, and truthfully, no matter which way your politics are positioned, we can close this presidential campaign on a note of pride. Both President Obama and Gov. Romney delivered high-minded, heal-the-wounds speeches Tuesday night. Admittedly, that’s a lot easier to do when you’re up in the victory stand, but despite all the bitterness and mean-spirited mud-slinging of the past 18 months, both victor and vanquished acquitted themselves well in the end.
You only wish that those gracious, conciliatory, statesman-like personalities could have been on display during the campaign, not after it was all over.
That said, there was one element of this year’s presidential election that is truly troubling, and that is the virtual absence of any discussion—much less support—for the interests of animal agriculture and the food processing industry.
Not one word in all the debates about food security. Not one second in all the campaigning about the farm bill. Not a single ad mentioning agricultural exports.
With an army of campaign staffers ready to pounce on any whiff of an opinion from either candidate about every divisive social issue out there, the urgency of how we best promote, support and advance the American food production system didn’t apparently register on either party’s radar.
That is cause for concern.
The challenges ahead
Despite the devastating drought that savaged the Midwest, any discussion about the federal response was nonexistent. Granted, Superstorm Sandy was a heckuva lot more dramatic—and devastating—but shouldn’t the worst drought in a century have merited some attention?
The farm bill debate ground to a halt in the last days of this year’s do-nothing Congress, and neither Obama nor Romney bothered to let us know whether they even cared one way or the other.
Ag exports are critical to sustaining the farm economy and to righting our national trade imbalance, but amidst all the talk of jobs, jobs, jobs, neither candidate so much as mentioned what we need to do to ensure a robust agricultural sector going forward.
And although we got a few minutes of happy talk about investing in education, in nearly five hours of nationally televised debating not even one sentence could be spared to even mention agricultural research.
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