I have been interested in politics since I was 10-years-old. It started because my mom listened to talk radio when she took me to and from school. Every weekday I listened to conservative commentators opine about the day's hot topics: taxes, government-spending, civil liberties, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. My political views then were simplistic. I espoused the bromides that talk radio had taught me, and was convinced of the rightness of my worldview.

In high school, my stances did not become much more sophisticated, but my ability to defend them did. I learned how to make political arguments that sounded nice but never strayed from abstract generalities. America should promote freedom, create opportunity and stand up for what is right across the globe. I never gave much thought to the specifics.

Only towards the end of my high school career did nuance begin to creep into my belief system. By the time I got to college, I realized that most big political question did not have simple answers. What does it mean to promote freedom? How can we create opportunity? Whose version of “right" should we stand up for? One of the few blanket statements that I now feel comfortable making is that platitudes do not make for good policy.

That is why I find political campaigns so painful to watch. Politicians tell voters they will fight for the middle class, restore law and order, stop corporate greed, or, my personal favorite, start winning again. These slogans are vague because they are not meant to be solutions, they are meant to manipulate emotions. And they work. “Change" is a better rallying cry than “Lets cap student loan interest rates at 15% of the borrower's discretionary income with any remaining balance forgiven after 25 years." However, that does not make the former a concrete policy idea.

We have all had too many dinner table debates and Facebook fights that have revolved around political platitudes. We need to learn to see through the campaign malarky (to use one of Joe Biden's favorite terms) and focus on substance. I do not expect us all to become policy experts, and discuss the minutia of each candidates' proposals, but we can and should educate ourselves a bit more about their content (or lack thereof). If we can do that, we could improve our political discourse, make better voting decisions, and subsequently, make real progress in solving our nation's challenges.