For those of you who don’t know, I live in Northern Virginia, near Washington, DC, and this year, because Virginia can’t be like normal states that have elections on even years, we have a governors race this year. We’re also electing members of the House of Delegates, the lower half of Virginia’s legislature.
Here’s the thing. I understand that we have to have elections, and I understand that candidates buy ads on TV, but we’re being swamped by ads here, for the governor’s race, for the various delegate races, and the ads are consistently negative. The Republican, Bob McDonnell, wants to outlaw abortions and stop women from working. The Democrat, Creigh Deeds, says he won’t raise taxes but he’s lying about it. I’m pretty sure I heard an ad accusing one of the delegate candidates of supporting DWI.
It’s just negative ad after negative ad played hour after hour. I’m leaning toward not watching TV for the next week.
It’s horrible. I am so upset that the Democrat Deeds is doing poorly. It’s going to suck living here if McDonnell wins. Maybe I’ll have to move to Maryland
Maybe I’m in the minority but I actually LOVE negative attack campaign ads.
I think many of them are funny, and could watch them all day. My favorites are the ones with the worst possible black and white pictures of the other candidate being shown with scary theme music in the background. In New Jersey, the Jon Corzine ads are trying to portray Republican Doug Christie (not the basketball player with the overbearing wife) as doing everything he can to prevent women from getting mammograms, because he’s evil and hates women and wants them all to die, you see. So now Christie has to put out a “feel good” ad with his wife at his side, holding his hand, explaining that how Corzine is taking the wimmens vote away from him, and how could Jon Corzine be so mean and say that when his mom is a breast cancer victim. Then what comes up at the next commercial break? A Doug Christie ad attacking Jon Corzine.
Its great stuff!
Remember, political mudslinging is as old as the USA itself.
Well, the polls are all assuming that a large chunk of the people who voted for Obama won’t bother to vote for Deeds; I think the smallest McCain victory margin I’ve seen so far was 51-46, which is smaller than Obama’s (53-46). I don’t think anyone’s really sure if that assumption is warranted, though they may claim that it’s definitely going to happen.
I think by now every Virginian has heard about McDonnell’s doctoral thesis. But that’s my point. Stuff like that are the only ads I’m hearing. Just by looking at their TV ads, I have no idea what any of these candidates actually stand for. I just know how terrible their opponent is.
Bob McDonnell apparently has some plan to fix transportation by selling off liquor stores, Creigh Deeds has his own transportation plan that “the Washington Post thinks makes sense for Virginia” and Steve Shannon wants to crack down on internet child porn, but those are the only three ads I think I’ve seen where a candidate will talk about his own record or own ideas.
I just think it’s amazing that there are states where you can run an attack ad accusing your opponent of wanting to OUTLAW abortion. I was in San Francisco once for a conference and was absolutely amazed to see campaign ads that were pro-choice. It blew my fragile little mind.
Virginia politics makes me soooooo happy to live in MD. I wouldn’t want to vote for either of those guys. Deeds’ ads have been just terrible. McDonnell’s ads are marginally better, but not substantive at all. Plus, McDonnell seems like a creepy guy, no matter what Sheila Johnson says.
This campaign might be even worse than the Webb/Allen race.
Yeah, I just recently moved to Blacksburg from Santa Cruz, California (big change) for med school, and I changed my registration to Virginia so that I could vote for Deeds, since McDonnell scares the living crap outta me. Unfortunately, the more I hear from Deeds and read about him, the less I really want to vote for him. I was hoping there would be a Green Party candidate or something, but I think I’m just going to have to hold my nose and go for Deeds and pray that McDonnell doesn’t win.
HaHa my thoughts as well. Virginia is certainly not a place I miss living.
I think lack of voter turn out will lead to Bob McDonnell winning. He’ll be the ultra conservative he claims to be people will realize what that means and for years later people will show up when its time to vote to avoid something similar.
Another Virginia resident here (we got our voter registration switched over from Ohio just in time), and I’m resigning myself to the fact that Deeds is going to lose. I’ve actually volunteered with his campaign to canvass in my neighborhood (I’m currently laid off again, after being laid off once in April, and finishing up a four month contract job last Tuesday), but I really don’t think Deeds will win. I’m also not completely sold on Deeds (so it’s probably morally wrong for me to canvass for him), but between him and McDonnell, he’s the clear choice as far as my own politics go.
I’m sick to death of the ads, and I’m sick of the survey calls (the majority of which have come from the Republican side) - I probably completely skew their results, though, because while both my husband and I tend to lean very, very liberal, I am actually voting for a Republican for one of the main offices (Attorney General, if it matters), and I am a bit more conservative on some of the issues. So if they end up talking to me, my responses tend to be all over the place. One of the guys who called to do a survey just sounded more and more confused as our conversation went on . However, I answer honestly and I answer politely (unless it’s an automated survey - my husband heard me yelling “NO, I am NOT A MAN!” into the phone at an automated survey system last week ;)).
We do consider ourselves a very liberal household (so much so that we refuse to subscribe to the local Richmond paper because we have issues with the way that they have been passing off editorials as factual articles, and instead, we get the Washington Post on Sundays only), but we are definitely not completely happy with Deeds as the Democratic candidate. OTOH, McDonnell scares me even more, so I hope to hell Deeds wins. But I’m not holding my breath.
I don’t know if I’d go as far as Really Not All That Bright and say that he’s completely disowned everything he said in his thesis, it’s more than he’s being indirect and disingenuous by saying that your opinions change as you get older, and he’s not the same person he was when he wrote the thesis. I haven’t heard him refute his stance on anything in his thesis (and I did watch both debates, and have read the articles in the Times Dispatch and Post), but I have heard him attempt to turn it into a ‘I was a different person then’ kind of thing.
I have no issue with him using that for his reasoning, but it would be nice to know exactly where his opinions lie on those issues, instead of the ‘let my record speak for itself’ move that he’s pulled.
. However, I answer honestly and I answer politely (unless it’s an automated survey - my husband heard me yelling “NO, I am NOT A MAN!” into the phone at an automated survey system last week ;)).