I suppose this is technically about the election, since it’s a political ad.
You know you’re in Texas when this is an actual ad:
For the youtube impaired:
He’s running for Harris County District Attorney, i.e. Houston, Texas. I swear, this sounds like something SNL would do as a parody.
I don’t get it.
Maybe I’m missing something here but I’m not sure what you find so shocking. He is claiming to be a prosecutor who has been tough on crime and has fought to see the law enforced. He has pushed for the death penalty whenever possible. Since he’s running for office in a state that is very pro-death penalty and very law and order I don’t get what you find outrageous here.
To me it looks like the sort of ad that could get you elected DA in Texas.
And I say that as someone who lived in Texas, and the Houston area, for 22 years.
I don’t get it either. Well, I found it funny that he had a picture in his courtroom of a cannon with the phrase “Come and take it”. But since you transcribed the video, I assume that’s not what you were talking about.
It seemed like a normal political ad to me. I was expecting some hootin’ and hollerin’.
It’s a perfectly normal ad if a bit blunt and to the point. Are you an actual person from Ireland and the hardcore punishment sensibilities of the ad shock you?
I just looked at your profile. You’re from Texas. and you find this surprising?
I did the same thing. The location was the only thing I found surprising.
It’s a symbol from the Texas Revolution and is on a lot of stuff in gov’t buildings there. Its sort of morphed into an NRA thing too, but I suspect that’s not the main reason it was in a Texas courtroom.
TEXAS is the most barbaric state in the union, and judging by the answers on this thread people are immune to barbarism.
I thought Mississippi was the most barbaric state. Huh. Ignorance fought.
The man is running for prosecutor. He boasts about successful prosecutions.
Do you think a candidate for county cowboy should crow about all the cattle he mislaid?
I don’t give a fuck if he’s running for dog catcher. I’m simply responding to the visceral response of the OP, incredulous at the ad. Barbarians like being who they are, but a lot of people think they’re creeps.
What, specifically, makes Texans barbaric?
As set out in the OP, “As a law and order judge, Mike Anderson handed down thousands of years of prison time, and signed orders sending murderers to death row.”
That sure sounds like a person being elected for convicting rather than judging, sentencing based on incarceration rather than alternative measures, and of course promotion of the utterly barbaric and inexcusible death penalty, which occasionally results in the killing of innocent people. In short, the barbarity of a system that kills people, that incarcerates far too many people for far too long, and that does not result in a safer society.
You’d think that simply stating the number of convictions would be sufficient to justify being elected to DA, and I found the additional detail macabre and unnecessary. But, you know… Texas.
I haven’t watched the ad at Youtube. Nor have I seen it on TV. I’m against the death penalty & tend not to vote for Republicans. But Mike Anderson has expressed other opinions. From the Houston Chronicle:
When appealing to the Texas Yahoos, he’ll count up them convictions & executions. Otherwise, he’s not all that bad for a Republican. Alas, here’s his opponent:
If you really want to get upset about a Texan,pick this guy:
That’s the point - the ad seems like a preposterous exaggeration when so blatantly bragging about sending people to Death Row, yet this is exactly the kind of ad to get elected in Texas.
Well, I did give a verbatim transcript. Except I didn’t mark the emphasis.
Those comments are much more reasonable. That would be the kind of thing to stress in an ad that would get my support. Rather than emphasizing his use of Death Row.
Yeah, that guy is pretty despicable. Thanks for the heads up.
I know what you’re saying. Greg Abbott was leading the charge in suing against the EPA. The claim is that Texas has its own environmental control board and already has strict enough controls, we don’t need no stinking feds to come in and tell us how to protect our air quality and all that. His belief is that the EPA is not acting just to reasonably control pollution, but to stifle industry and power production. It’s a fairly common opinion in Texas, and judging by Romney in other states.
This is Texas, where the Republican Primary for the Senate had a race between David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz. Dewhurst is the Republican Lt. Governor of Texas under Rick Perry. Ted Cruz is a Tea Party supported candidate who is also a lawyer.
They got into a nasty negative campaign. The worst accusation about Cruz: he’s a lawyer who defends a Chinese company for violating US patents and putting an American company out of business. The worst accusation against Dewhurst: he’s a moderate Republican, so-and-so calls him a moderate Republican, elsewhere he was called a moderate Republican.
Guess who won the primary?
By the way, Ted Cruz was Soliciter General under Gregg Abbott.
The unkempt mullets, the comically accented English, the barely-suppressed homoeroticism…
Bar-B-Q, pecan pie and Willy Nelson. 'Nuff sed.
I’m from Montreal, and I can’t see what’s so shocking or even especially Texasy about the ad.
On the other hand, I hear good things about the amount the courts can bench-suppress.