Illinois is solidly blue, meaning Kerry has a probable lock on our electors. In the only Senatorial campaign Barack Obama is some fifty points ahead of Allen Keyes, who has thus been abandoned by almost all Republican donors and seems to be financing his campaing out of his own non-bottomless pocket. There are no big state offices up for grabs and apparently most other races are so lopsided that nobody is buying airtime because I have not seen a political ad of any sort since the primaries, and they weren’t so bad because Kerry had all his delegates by the Illinois primary and Bush was unopposed. The Swift Boat guys? I’d’ve never heard of them if I didn’t hang out here. This is the greatest election EVER! though I pity you folks in battleground states.
True, but at least you get that solid color benefit. (psssst! political discussions and complaints will get this thread moved or close. it’s just about the number of ads, thanks.)
Yeah, what happened, Mr. President? You don’t call me no more, you don’t write…
It’s tough being blue in a red state, but it’s true that we get almost no ads for the presidential race. No phone calls, no nothin’. Just yard signs, pretty much.
However, the same obviously does not go for local politics.
Jim DeMint and Inez Tennenbaum, damn you both to eternal hellfire. But especially you, Jim DeMint. Some days when I watch TV, I hope I see you running down the road on fire one day, so I can deliberately not piss on you.
Interestingly enough, that’s the only race I see ads for, though. Usually somebody’s duking it out over coroner or something, but the other races have all been yard-signs only, pretty much. Let me tell you, though, the school board has a yard sign war afoot, it seems.
I haven’t seen a single presidential ad except maybe one or two on cable news. The Frost/Session race has produced a few ads but I’m not in that district. My district is only running a Democrat so there is absolutely nothing about that race. I wouldn’t even know anybody was running till I looked it up on the internet. Basically my vote for this election counts toward nothing.
There’re signs posted here and there where I live but nothing overwhelming and I don’t even own a TV so the only time I am exposed to political ads are when I am channel surfing at work.
So being a recluse helps if you happen to live in a purple state which, surprisingly, Oregon seems to be.
There are stories in various media outlets that here in Wisconsin the average voter has seen some ungodly number of political ads already with more on the way. I watch next to no network TV so mercifully I have been spared the bulk of them. Most of the ones I see are on CNN which is on one of the TVs at the gym where I work out, but I don’t listen to the sound that goes with it. Our Democratic senator, Russ Feingold, is ahead in his race so while I’ve seen some of his and his opponent’s ads none of them have sunk in to the point where I can even recall his opponent’s name. One of Feingold’s primary opponents, Russ Darrow, ran some ads calling himself “the right Russ” but the things he was touting himself for being right about were things like supporting the PATRIOT Act (Feingold was the only no vote in the Senate) which is not popular in the state. I haven’t seen a single ad for our incumbent Congresswoman, Tammy Baldwin, or her opponent and again I have no idea what her opponent’s name is.
My city is, however, home to a Sinclair station so if I want to I can watch that piece of cra…uh, propogan…uh, news program.
Heck, I don’t live in any state, and I have the “pleasure” of watching political ads. My cable carries Detroit affiliates of the major US networks. To be honest, though, there seem to be more ads about Proposal 1 than anything else.
I’m in RI, one of the most pro-Kerry states in the country. From a quick check of electoral-vote.com, it looks like only NY has a bigger lead for Kerry. So I haven’t seen any ads about the presidential race, although there might be some regarding local races. Then again, I don’t really watch much TV at all. But I feel like I shouldn’t be so glad to live in a state of like-minded people (especially seeing as how I’m in college, so my academic environment is super-liberal too), but I have such a dislike for everything that Bush has done that I don’t think I could live in a solid-red state for very long at all. I mean, I’m more of a classical liberal than a liberal, so I do find myself disagreeing a lot with my peers and my state’s politics, but I can understand their viewpoints, whereas the pro-Bush viewpoint is in such an alternate universe that I can’t even have a productive discussion with many Bushites.
(Not trying to turn this into a debate; just my opinion on the way I interact with people of differing political opinions. Do any of the Bushies feel that way about us Kerry supporters? I guess it’s just the way politics is, and why GD threads never come to a satisfying consensus.)
California resident speaking, and man I’d happily put up with a few Bush or Kerry ads if it meant having to suffer through fewer of the two Indian gaming casino proposition ads that have been inundating the airwaves here…
I live in the DC metro area. We never see shit here. I think since the capitol is here, we’re exempt, like family members of Publisher’s Clearing House employees or something.
Battleground state, so the presidential ads are constant.
Senate election – Arlen Specter is up for re-election. It’s creepy seeing him surrounded by the small children he’s helped.
There’s a local Congressional election where the Republican candidate has a record of lies and distortions in her ads – which her Democratic opponent points out regularly.
I can’t wait for this freaking election to be over.
BTW – lawn signs seem to be pretty evenly split between Bush and Kerry on my 12-mile trip to work and back – and since I come home a different route than I go, I see abotu 15 miles worth of lawn signs every day.
I had a Kerry/Edwards sign in my yard. I live in a very conserviative little community. My sign disappeared. So I got another sign on Friday. I put it up farther into the yard so my little 16-pound Jack Russell Terrier might scare someone from taking my sign, but it could happen when she’s inside at night. Well, hopefully they’ll get a shoeful of dog poop. That would be good!
On a positive note, there are quite a few Kerry signs in my town. That usually doesn’t happen.
Ohio here. It seems like you guys live on a totally different planet. We get not only the relentless tv and radio commercials, but also junk mail and phone calls. And that’s in addition to all the local politics. I truly can’t wait til this insanity is over.
The amazing thing is that some people are still “undecided.”
The lack of political ads is scant compensation for the feeling of total disenfranchisement I get for living in a solid Republican area of a solid Republican state. I’d take ad bombardments any day if it meant I could cast my vote with the feeling that I was doing something other than pissing into the wind.
