Polimom’s no different from every other goo-goo eyed mama about AC’s babyhood.
She was perfect; looking back through my adoring, rose-colored glasses, even her diapers were rarely (and barely) soiled… or at least, they were cleaner than this year’s campaign tactics (WaPo):
On the brink of what could be a power-shifting election, it is kitchen-sink time: Desperate candidates are throwing everything. While negative campaigning is a tradition in American politics, this year’s version in many races has an eccentric shade, filled with allegations of moral bankruptcy and sexual perversion.
At the same time, the growth of “independent expenditures” by national parties and other groups has allowed candidates to distance themselves from distasteful attacks on their opponents, while blogs and YouTube have provided free distribution networks for eye-catching hatchet jobs.
[snip]
The result has been a carnival of ugly, especially on the GOP side, where operatives are trying to counter what polls show is a hostile political environment by casting opponents as fatally flawed characters. The National Republican Campaign Committee is spending more than 90 percent of its advertising budget on negative ads, according to GOP operatives, and the rest of the party seems to be following suit.
This has to be the pettiest, most pathetic election season on record. It’s certainly the worst I’ve ever seen — and Polimom ain’t wet behind the ears, folks.
Yes, yes… I realize that both sides are stinkin’ up the diaper pail, but there’s a world of difference between “normal” negative campaigning and rooting around in someone’s closet for dirty, unwashed onesies. They both smell bad, but dang it, is it absolutely necessary to wave petty, and sometimes fanciful, foulness right in our faces?
I don’t think so.
Over at the Moderate Voice, Michael van der Galien wonders why WaPo’s article harps on the Republicans, but the GOP told us that this was how they intended to campaign, and by golly, they finally delivered on something. (From factcheck.org)
The ads being aired by both the NRCC and its rival, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, are overwhelmingly negative. However, the DCCC ads generally attack Republican candidates on policy issues or their performance in office – accusing them of casting votes favorable to drug or oil companies, or of supporting President Bush’s unpopular policies in Iraq or on Social Security. We’ve recently criticized factual inaccuracies we’ve seen in some of those, and we’ll have more to say in a later article. Here we focus on the NRCC’s ads, which are much more likely to demean an opponent’s character. That’s the very definition of political mudslinging.
Political mudslinging is sleazy and cheap… and it earned a big fat raspberry from Polimom at the polls this week.
I was already ticked off, of course. The conservative part of Polimom long-since concluded that this crop of politicians needs to be tossed out on its collective bottom; as Peggy Noonan wrote yesterday, “They want to fire Congress because they can’t fire President Bush.”
I don’t qualify as “they”, but count me among those who wants to get rid of this president, and by extension, everybody on the Hill. Obviously my disgust extends rather further… and deeper; I voted for a clean sweep.
From Tennessee to Missouri to Virginia to California, whispers, ads, and attacks are scraping the slime from the lime-deficient holes beneath strategic porta-potties everywhere. The putrid stench is flat-out toxic, and while Polimom’s not part of anybody’s “base”, I have to assume I’m not the only person whose eyes are watering from the fumes.
Holding my breath hasn’t turned me fluorescent blue, but all this has had an effect on me; I didn’t vote this week for a single Republican at the state or national level… and that, my friends, is a first.
This is no worse than any other political season. It’s just that with the 24 hour news cycle and blogs we see everything everywhere.
I remember watching CSPAN a few years ago when liberal historian Doris Kearns Goodwin harkened back to the good old days of LBJ. She fondly recounted a story about LBJ when he was running for congress. He asked a campaign worker to spread a story that his oppenent was a child molestor. When the campaign worker said, but it’s not . LBJ responded, yes, I know but I just want to see him deny it.
The good old days of politics gone by. The big thing is we see what’s going on right in front of our eyes.
What bothers me is the MSM has dropped any pretense of being fair. Just watch CNN this week with it’s special “Broken Government”. It’s nothing more than a campaign ad for the Dems. The constant barrage on this President by the press is unprecedented.
By voting for the Dems what have you accomplished. You’ll elect a group of not-serious politicians who will help our enemies destroy us.
Thanks, Polimom, thanks a lot.
Polimom,
I too voted early, and while I can’t say I didn’t vote for a single Republican, I did vote for a Democrat or two (in spite of the intellectual bankruptcy of the national Democratic leadership).
I have already made my prediction for this year’s national election results, and I stand by it. However, should the Democrats take control of one of the two legislative branches, I don’t see it as the end of the world. I expect they will demonstrate again and again the truth of the Republican’s charge that they are not serious about defending the country. That may very well set up a landslide for the ‘much despised’ Republicans in 2008, especially if the Democrats nominate a candidate that can’t or won’t appeal to voters outside the Democrat’s base.
Negative campaigning is distasteful; both sides engage in it. And if this year, the Republicans are using more of it, perhaps they believe that they must just to counter the overwhelming advantage the Democrats have with the allegedly ‘neutral’ MSM.
One of the nice things about voting early is that you just don’t have to listen to the political spam anymore. Your die is already cast; just ignore it.
If anybody is helping our enemies destroy us, it’s this administration. In fact, this administration isn’t just helping our enemies…they’re destroying us themselves.
As for Polimom, I would’ve been happy either way you voted because it’s nice to know that intelligent, thoughtful people are out at the poles trying to make a difference.
What defines a negative ad, in your observations, since you have seen so many this year to make you think that there are much more of them?
I think in some form, negative ads will always be necessary to candidates. If you have an elected official that has served numerous terms, it is very difficult to bring something new to the race when people feel satisfied with the status quo. The burden is on the challenger to say why change is needed, and could you honestly say that all representatives have a perfect voting record in the eyes of all of their constituents? To some incumbents, just bringing up a vote they don’t want to advertise makes it “negative”, I guess as long as it doesn’t go in their favor it is.
If the challenger is new to public office, then they can only make ads for so long that say how great a personality that person has, or how they feel on vague future issues. The incumbent has endless bills and actions that put them in a glowing light to talk about.
To a point I do not feel that a negative ad can be avoided in all cases. However, the use of personal lives in negative ads is where I think it misses the mark. You are no longer “informing” the voter of anything really relevant. Unless the guy has murdered someone, I really just don’t care because I have to take it with a huge block of salt given that it is only being brought up by someone who wasn’t there and hates the other guy. But clearly the ads are made to target someone out there who does care, and for some reason they must think they work.
Hi Jack,
I agree, for the most part, with your description of negative ads, and why they’re used (and why we’ll always see some). It feels to me, though, as if this particular season has very little in the way of, “here’s how I would have voted on that issue, this is why, and here’s how it fits into my wider stance”.
Nearly everything is presented in terms of the opposition’s wrongness, leading to the “we’re not them and they are evil” tone we’ve got. Those grow extremely stale in such quantity, and I would have been disgusted by this point anyway — but the character assassinations are so far over the top, I’m repulsed.