Another year of matchups

Last year, as the New Year dawned, and while channeling my inner sports writer, I wrote about the 'matchups” that I thought would shape 2014.

Looking back, it's clear our bracket got busted.

There was the big Politics vs. Problems matchup, pitting our need for deep, thoughtful solutions against our shallow, dishonest and substance-free politics. Politics won in a blowout. We could have used a mercy rule by August.

So it was no surprise that Campaign Bucks buried Common Good under a mountain of sketchy outside dollars pouring in from both sides of the aisle. Expediency whipped transparency, the Past once again held back the Future and Ideology sent Governing home early.

So it ws a great year for the strategists and consultants and shapers of candidates and campaigns designed to outrage, obfuscate and alienate. They're going to Disneyland.

For the rest of us, there is 2015, and hope, and more matchups.

Fake vs. Real - Are the debates of 2015 going to be about real issues - our woefully neglected infrastructure, a deeply flawed taxation system, an economy that now yields more insecurity than prosperity, the reality of climate change, the unbridled rise of unlimited campaign spending and a lagging, outdated education system, to name just a few - or will they be about imagined tyranny, fictional treason, dogmatic discomforts, this week's 15 minutes of outrage or who did or didn't threaten a chicken with legal action?

Demonization vs. Discussion - You've boldly plastered Facebook with your unshakable viewpoints, swiftly unfriended detractors, turned Thanksgiving dinner into 'Crossfire,” stickered your bumper, labeled their bias and hashtagged the haters to Hades. And thanks to you and so many others like you, the nation's intractable struggles have been resolved and its divisions healed. Well done.

Solutions vs. Scapegoats - We just endured an election cycle largely defined by campaigns determined to convince us why we should be outraged, who deserves blame and which side we should fear most. And yet, it turns out shouting 'Koch brothers!” over and over again isn't really a compelling agenda. We deserve a lot better in 2015. That doesn't mean we'll get it.

Breaking! Huge! and Game-Changing! vs. Perspective - THIS JUST IN! According to sources, this is the MASSIVE matchup that will CHANGE EVERYTHING in 2015! It's the most awesome, ludicrous, outrageous, jaw-dropping, world-shaking revelation you'll see all year, and it will leave you SPEECHLESS! They don't want you to hear it! And you'll NEVER BELIEVE what happens next!

Hope vs. Doom - For all of my own stubborn gloom and cynicism, I still think we live in a country with a tremendous capacity to persevere, revive and heal. The one thing even more tiresome than all the political chicanery we're subjected to is the persistent cult of decline. Whether deployed in the interest of petty politics or out of an ignorance of our history, the notion that health insurance exchanges, marriage equality or some immigration bill will bring America low is just stupid. Stop it.

And have a Happy New Year!

' Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com