Gay marriage
Abortion
Gun control
Tax rates on the wealthy
Amount of regulation for the markets
Torture of key terrorists
Most foreign policy matters
Stem cell research
Universal health care
Immigration reform
"Almost every single one of those issues you pointed out are just election year platform gimmicks."
They're used as election platforms precisely because they matter.
If you're gay, the right to marry matters.
If you or your partner gets pregnant the right to be able to have an abortion matters. Even just knowing that abortions are legal can affect the very personal decisions people make. How could something like this possibly not matter?
If you own guns and don't want them taken away that matters.
Tax rates on the wealthy matter because they effect everyones tax rates.
The amount of regulation of markets matter. For example compare and contrast the current stability of Canadian vs. American banks.
Foreign policy! Its very likely that if we hadn't had Bush as president we wouldn't have gotten into an unneeded war that has already cost us over a trillion dollars. This matters.
Torture. Sure, civil rights. Nothing important there.
Universal health care. Really. Just a gimmick. Weather or not we should have universal health care is just a gimmick. Nothing important there, not at all.
Those issues come up every election because people care about them because they're REALLY IMPORTANT.
The issues and the facts surrounding them might be distorted every elections but the issues themselves are far more than just gimmicks.
Cheers,
Greg