I wonder every election if voters fully understand what candidates are really saying to them during campaigns. Some years, I'm sure voters get it. Lately, it seems to be getting tougher.

A couple of issues this year are making things particularly difficult: inflation and abortion.

When talking about the economy, time is money, so, let me get right to the point: The American Recovery Plan is not the reason there is global inflation.

I know of zero credible economists who will say it is. Some will say it exacerbated inflation. I wonder if those same experts would agree that the $1 billion refund Indiana Republicans just approved in August did the same thing. I know some who do.

The pandemic is the cause of the inflation that is being felt across the planet, and yes, that includes the United States. So, then why is Indiana's senior senator, Todd Young, trying to campaign so hard against the Biden-led recovery plan while ignoring his own party's similar play in the Statehouse?

Young doesn't believe voters will notice, is my guess. And if I had to guess again, Young is probably right.

This election year, there is a long list of examples across the country of candidates' strategies presuming voters won't notice obvious contradictions and reversals. Blake Masters was a hardline supporter of the elimination of abortion rights with no exceptions when seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. Since winning the primary, and after the notorious abortion ruling this summer, he has scrubbed his campaign website of all of that.

Dr. Mehmet Oz went the other direction in his campaign for the Senate in Pennsylvania. In 2019, Oz publicly stated his support for Roe v. Wade. In 2022, as a candidate, he has slowly evolved from moderately anti-abortion to extreme on this issue as reported in August, by New Yorker Magazine. That's quite a shift by a medical doctor. The desire for power in the U.S. Senate is apparently too great for his medical philosophy to withstand.

What Young, Masters and Oz share in common is that these are examples of things that make them unreliable. Again, it seems they don't think voters will notice or care or both.

Are they wrong?

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