Liberals Slinging Mud

October 21, 2010

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[Editor’s note: In addition to her work here, Crunchy has picked up freelance gigs at Suite101 and Associated Content.  Check out her articles on those sites.]

I’m just waiting for that political ad. You know, the one that states their opponent eats small children or kicks kittens in the face. In Iowa, where I live, the ads are getting really, really dirty. What’s interesting is it is mostly Liberals (or groups that side with Liberals) slamming the Conservatives. The Conservatives, even those going against incumbents, are not getting that dirty…it’s the incumbent Liberals going after the challenging Conservatives. And if you watch any National news, you’ll see this is a trend nationwide.

The Liberals have gone on a literal witch hunt. Literal witch hunt. It’s not in Salem this time and it’s not the Puritans, but in Delaware and Liberals. The Liberals are scared–no, terrified. To bring out that Christine O’Donnell is a witch? Come on. Who hasn’t done something in high school or college that they’re not proud of? But witch? It’s not 1692.

The truth is, no matter how much I hate negative ads, I do know why they air. Six years ago, while working as a Communications Director for a Senatorial Campaign, we didn’t go negative. We didn’t have to. My boss wasn’t and isn’t that kind of a Senator. But working in politics, I did see more than my share of negative ads. It was Bush versus Kerry after all. In expressing my disgust for negative ads, one of our advisers said to me, “Sarah, do you know why they run negative ads? Because they work.”

Sadly, he was right. They do work. Not on those who seek out the truth, not on those who research the candidates for themselves, but they work on those who catch the 30 seconds, believe it and vote. Thankfully, uninformed people rarely vote in a midterm election. The polls show Conservatives winning many races. But the polls who questioned likely voters show the Conservatives WAY ahead. Which is why the Liberals are scared. They don’t have their base energized like they did in 2008. Maybe they ran out of kool-aid, maybe no one who voted for Obama got their mortgage paid or a $20,000 check like they were promised (I’m not kidding, I know of a voter who actually believed this) or maybe no one could think of a better slogan than “Yes we can”.

Liberals, it’s time to face it. You failed. You got the power you’ve been whining and begging for years for and you failed. You’ve taken over health care, given Wall Street bail outs, gave “cash for clunkers”, bailed out the failing auto industry, continued to lose more and more jobs and seem to think the only way to solve the problem is to throw money at it—er, I mean, economic stimulus…yeah, that’s it.

Liberals are a broken record. “Stimulus, stimulus, stimulus.” In a time where families are living on one income due to a lost job, prices of everything going up and pay increases have been frozen due to the economy we’re all having to tighten our belts. All we hear is “stimulus, stimulus, stimulus”. And that, to the working American sounds like, “spend, spend, spend.” As Ronald Reagan once said, “We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money.”

It’s time to take back OUR country. It’s OUR money they’re spending; not theirs. Watch “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, something I love to do every two years and then vote. Learn about the candidates. Really research the issues. View everything without looking at their party affiliation and then vote. Vote for the candidate, not the party. Whether it be Democrat, Republican or Tea.

And if you plan to vote for those who voted for the bailouts, Obamacare and all of the stimulus spending, don’t forget to vote on November 3rd.

5 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. kosmo
    Oct 21, 2010 @ 08:03:10

    I think your boss could beat Santa Claus in an election. Even with the effectiveness of negative ads, he’d really having nothing to gain. Maybe he’d get 75% of the vote instead of 65%+, but that’s still exactly zero benefit – and his reputation would definitely suffer. It would be interesting to see if he’d change his mind if he was in a close race … but I doubt that’s going to happen.

    The ads that really annoy me are the ones that confuse correlation and causation – taking credit for something or casting blame for something because a person was in office at the right (or wrong) time. For example, if Switzerland suddently nukes Wyoming today, is Wyoming’s governor to blame? Equally annoying is the fact that the attacked candidates doesn’t come out with ads saying “candidate X in insulting your intelligence – and this is how.” I guess that might take more than 30 seconds to explain.

    Reply

  2. Squeaky
    Oct 21, 2010 @ 11:23:50

    Great one Crunchy. Negative ads probably do work, but like you said…only on the uninformed voter. Those of us that are cognizant of politics don’t adhere to the ads and can probably call out the lies and twisted quotes that they use too.

    In Colorado we have a couple of candidates that refuse to go negative and I’m thankful for that. The democrat running for governor was shown in a shower (fully clothed) to demonstrate that he was going to run a clean campaign. While I can’t stand his political stance on anything, I respect his refusal to go negative.

    In many of our regional ads the desperation is now obvious. They are really getting bad. They are taking 2 second quotes from a candidate then twisting the meaning into something totally unrelated…sad. Most people probably have no idea what they’re doing though.

    Roger on the Kool-Aid. I have relatives that drank that Kool-Aid in 2008. Most of them have come back around to their senses (my opinion of course) and have regretted their “transgressions” against the conservative party. Most just didn’t vote for president because they believed McCain to be a liberal in disguise–similar to a blue dog democrat but on the republican side.

    I’ll be sure to update my liberal friends that the election has been moved to November 3rd. =)

    Congratulations on your freelance work!

    Squeaky…

    Reply

  3. kosmo
    Oct 21, 2010 @ 15:00:28

    “They are taking 2 second quotes from a candidate then twisting the meaning into something totally unrelated”

    Yeah, that’s another thing I hate.

    At least we live in a time where was can easily use Google to find the context of a quote.

    Reply

  4. Onij
    Oct 21, 2010 @ 19:59:20

    @Crunchy – “take back our country!?”

    LMAO.. Ridiculous.

    Reply

  5. Tiberius Kane
    Oct 25, 2010 @ 15:13:21

    I’ll never forget the 1999 Iowa Straw Poll. It was a great time with free food, free shirts, music, speeches, and lots of booths with tons of information.

    What really stands out in my memory was when I was in a short line to cast my vote. I heard someone behind me say “…I’ll vote for him…”. As I turned I saw an elderly man talking to his wife and pointing at my Gary Bauer shirt. Maybe I should have been flattered I swayed a voter with my great looks and super cool T-shirt but I was not. I was grieved a fellow Iowan was so easily swayed. I was dismayed that with so much information available that my stupid T-shirt was required to form a final decision.

    With that experience, I can easily imagine negative ads work. I think we would live in a better world if candidates would just send every registered voter a T-shirt instead.

    Reply

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