The 2012 general election was a lot of things. It was an exercise in democracy, a peaceful transition of power and as annoying as ever. The cliches alone are enough to make you want to throw something at the TV.

We heard a lot of the same lines over and over again. The candidates even threw out many of the same tired old campaign lines.

One cliche that we are used to hearing every four years is “this is the most important election of our lifetime.” How can every election be the most important?

The election was also nasty, mean and full of annoying ads and robo-calls. But that is what we say every four years. The fact of the matter is that negative campaigning works.

The race for attorney general was especially nasty. The ads for both sides were misleading at best and downright offensive in other cases.

The number of robo-calls this year seemed to go up exponentially from four years ago. But it was inaccurate robo-calls in other states, telling people they had until Wednesday, Nov. 7 to vote, that got many up in arms on election day.

And while it seemed in Washington state that the TV election ads would never end, it was worse elsewhere in the United States.

We in Washington state did not get the barrage that those in swing states received for the presidential election. In Ohio alone, the Romney and Obama campaigns combined to buy nearly 220,000 TV ads. Florida came in second with nearly 200,000 TV ads.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the overall spending on the presidential election through Oct. 17 was nearly $2 billion.

And in another four years we will subject ourselves to more robo-calls, nasty TV ads, underhanded tactics and “the most important election of our lifetime.”

But when you think of the alternative to democracy, we would all agree this isn’t bad at all — unless your candidate lost.

— Reporter Newspapers