By Their Spoor Shall Ye Know Them

[Plaid Adder]

Is there some kind of law that says that Republican campaign ads have to be not only misleading and hateful, but actually, on a purely formal and aesthetic level, painfully awful?

I don't live in Chicago, but I'm close enough to get their radio and TV stations. So I hear about all these candidates running in races I can't vote in. Mostly I don't pay too much attention, and in any case my TV's not working too well these days so I don't see much of that. I did catch one TV ad from whoever's running against Melissa Bean for Congress, and laughed my ass off through the whole 30 second. Because the whole ad was based around calling Melissa Bean a "Nancy Pelosi wanna-be." They said this as if "Nancy Pelosi wanna-be" was a synonym for "baby-eating blood-drinking vampiric child molester." I know this probably works on some people; but for me, I was just laughing my ass off and shouting, "Oh my God, is this all you got?"

Anyway, now they're haunting my radio station. I listen to this classical station which normally doesn't run regular ads; they just have the announcers read scripts from the corporations that underwrite them. However, they are airing prerecorded political ads. I have to say in fairness that Melissa Bean's ad is HIGHLY annoying. It's an unbelievably stilted and painful "conversation" between two "women" who run a "bakery" and who just happen to be discussing all the ways in which Melissa Bean is good for small businesses. When it comes on, I turn to the 70s rock station.

I thought it would be the worst that WFMT would throw me. But then, this morning, I heard this.

"Hello, I'm the leprechaun, come to talk to ye about Maureen Murphy!"

Maureen Murphy is running for something. Something that has to do with taxes. I'm not entirely sure, because I was writhing in pain inflicted by the "leprechaun's" unbelievably weak "Irish" accent and high squeaky voice. I did catch something to the effect that the leprechaun trusted Maureen Murphy to protect his "pot of gold" from the evil "King James O'Houlihan" who wanted to take everyone's money and was running a "puppet, also named Houlihan" against Maureen Murphy "to confuse people." He pronounced "confused" like it had six ooooooos in the second syllable. I don't know what happened after that because I was concerned that my head might be bleeding from the awfulness. Leprechauns? Fake Irish accents? The evil King James O'Houlihan? Don't these idiots realize that as far as the (one woudl suppose) Irish-American audience they're targeting is concerned, King James was on their side? I mean if the guy's name was William of Orange, maybe that would work, but still...leprechauns? :wtf:

The ad was finally over, without ever mentioning her party affiliation. I said, "I don't care what party she's in; but whoever she is, she needs to fire her publicity team. Who the hell thought this was a good idea?"

Then they aired the ad for the guy who's running against her. In fact, his name is Houlihan. Also, he claims that Maureen Murphy only likes to cut taxes on ginormous corporations. And also, he made sure everyone knew he was a Democrat.

I will be glad when election season is over. I can't take much more o' this.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Boomer]

1. Nancy Pelosi wanna-be

:rofl:

Don't they realize that only nerdy political wonks even know who Pelosi is. I'll bet the majority of voters are scratching their head, if they even bother to think about what that comparison is supposed to mean.

[Plaid Adder]

2. Oh, they made sure everyone knew she was a LIBERAL

from SAN FRANCISCO!!!!!

They even put a graphic of the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, in case people couldn't understand the words.

Oy,

The Plaid Adder

[kineneb]

3. proud to claim her

as a fellow Californian, despite her faults. If she pissed off the mindless RW, more power to her.

Hee, hee.:evilgrin:

[lapislzi]

4. I received a mailer from my GOP rep

that not only didn't have her party affiliation on it...it didn't even have her NAME on it, except for the "paid for by the committee to re-elect Sue Kelly" in tiny little letters on the back. (aside: I'm in NY-19) The whole mailer consisted of photos of the Democratic candidate, John Hall, and screed about all the awful things he'll be doing if elected, like:

--Free health care for everyone (horrors!)
--Rolling back bush's tax cuts (say it's not true!)
--Pulling our troops out of Iraq (get the smelling salts!)

So...I'm looking at this thing (and I have to admit that at first I thought it WAS an ad for John Hall), and I'm thinking, "what's this supposed to persuade me to do? This all sounds pretty good to me."

I don't know who this shit is playing to. And frankly, I don't care. If 51% of the people have the same reaction I did, then I would say that's a pretty good sign. Now we just have to get them to vote. We have a loooong weekend ahead of us. My ear hurts already.