Opinion: Chew on these three pet peeves

Remembering the old assignment, I’ve been thinking about my pet peeves. I currently have three.

Campaign headaches

1. The presidential election process has changed. Political parties used to select candidates every four years at conventions during the summer prior to the November elections. Sure, some state primaries allowed candidates to win some delegates; however, the greater part of the process took place at the conventions.

State primaries and conventions are still in play, but it has become a two-year media circus. Surveys show that most Americans can name only a few of this year’s candidates from either party. I recently heard Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd referred to as a Democratic “presidential candidate.” The 2008 election has been up and running for a year, and I didn’t know Dodd was a candidate. When former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson announced as a Republican candidate 14 months prior to the national election, political pundits mused that he had waited too long to announce.

Millions of dollars are raised by a host of candidates, and all but one from each party will eventually drop out. I can think of a lot of better uses for the money devoured by candidates.

With the misguided assumption that Americans are interested in this ongoing political farce, TV networks present debates among candidates from each party. I have never watched one. Based on viewer ratings, the vast majority of Americans have joined me in ignoring them.

Eventually, most Americans are so tired of the constant campaigning they just want it to end.

Bloated salaries

2. Another pet peeve came to me while reading a story about the death of Max McGee, former Green Bay Packers wide receiver. In the 1967 AFL-NFL World Championship Game, which was retitled Super Bowl I, McGee caught seven passes, two for touchdowns.

In the article, McGee had said that his annual salary was $25,000, compared to Packers quarterback Bart Starr’s $100,000 salary. Forty years ago professional athletes were paid fairly well for the time, but they were far from being millionaires.

Starr, a veteran, highly regarded quarterback, had a good salary for 1967. Tony Romo, Dallas Cowboy quarterback, is in his fifth year and just signed a $67 million contract. He is definitely not the best-paid player in professional sports.

New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez has opted out of his $252 million, 10-year contract with the Yankees. In so doing, he is giving up $72 million of guaranteed salary; doubtless he will more than make it up when he signs with a new team.

It’s nice that football, basketball, baseball players and all the rest are well paid – but multimillionaires?

Credit card’s foe

3. It may not sound like much of a peeve, but I resent the TV commercials with scenes staged in stores where everything is moving along in perfect motion as long as customers keep on swiping their credit cards and moving on. All activity grinds to a halt when someone has the audacity to use cash. The poor cash user is pictured as a dimwit who has ruined everything.

Credit cards are great, as long as we can pay them off. The message of this ad campaign encourages use of cards to pay for small items. That may or may not be a good thing.

My peeve is with labeling credit card users as cooperative wonders and cash users as troublemakers.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.