Two weeks to go.....

[poltr1]

....until the day the politial ads stop airing. For now.

I've just about had enough of the mud-slinging and poo-flinging from both sides that constitutes most of today's political advertising. "400,000 jobs lost under [Ohio governor] Ted Strickland." "[Ohio gubernatorial candidate] John Kasich took money from Wall Street." "[Ohio senatorial candidate] Lee Fisher said 'hold me accountable' three years ago." [Ohio senatorial candidate] Rob Portman touts his plan which will allegedly save everyone and everything, but doesn't go into detail about what it contains -- he might as well just say RTFPP (Read The F'ing Portman Plan).

I used to think that the Democrats were the Good Guys and the Republicans were the Bad Guys. Now I'm not so sure about the first part.

Where does the money come from to pay for these ads? Some allege that it comes from foreign investors. But according to this article from factcheck.org, it's illegal for foreign entities to purchase American political ads. And that "foreign money" claim? Total hooey.

There are times I wish political advertising was free, so that the third parties out there, from the Libertarians on down, would at least have a fighting chance at getting their word out to people. But then what would happen to our airwaves?

For the time being, I think I'll stick to channels that don't air poltical ads: PBS and the Weather Channel.

Comments

That's the problem with living in a one party system

[urban-terrorist.livejournal.com]

Seriously. You have one political party, with two faces. Bad system. Bad, bad, system.

Re: That's the problem with living in a one party system

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

... I do believe you have a really good point. And more.

Re: That's the problem with living in a one party system

[poltr1]

Yeah. That's one way of looking at it. And they've re-written the rules so that no one else can be competitive with them. If the American political machine was a company, they'd be sued under the anti-trust laws.

It's been my long-standing hope that Judge Greene would order the breakup of the Republican party, just like he did for AT&T back in 1984. But it looks like they're breaking up on their own.

Re: That's the problem with living in a one party system

[urban-terrorist.livejournal.com]

Pardon me for being a cynic, but that wouldn't help. You'd need to overhaul the entire political system. And since so many Americans believe that your system was ordained by God, that would be nearly impossible.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

It's illegal for foreigners to advertise directly, but it's (probably) not illegal for them to give money to certain political non profit groups. Those groups then turn around and buy "issue ads" attacking one candidate, but they refuse to disclose where their money came from. I think it's a stretch to claim that most of the money for this campaign is coming from foreigners, but it is clearly coming from companies who don't want to poison the message by admitting who they are, and it's exactly what was supposed to be stopped by McCain-Feingold, until the conservative junta on the Supreme Court imposed their pro-corproration, anti-American activist position that corporations spending unlimited money is protected free speech. Of course, the same decision explicitly says that they do have to disclose who's paying, and they're not doing that. But the Republicans will have bought this election before anyone can do anything about it, even if the practices we're seeing today are ruled illegal.

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

The Strickland and other Ohio Democratic campaigns are getting their funds from the other people besides me that they send the frequent emails to. (I say "other people besides me" because I haven't given anything yet.) But it's definitely grassroots / many "Little People" that they're reaching out to.
(I was going to try to insert a sample from the emails, but i've currently cleared them out of my inbox.

On the other hand, the "Concerned Taxpayers of America" turned out to be composed of exactly 2 donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130665397

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I'm watching some old TV shows on Hulu and I'm about sick of seeing ads for Charlie Baker for Governor of Mass.