So sick of Political commercials

[Hyfi]

I can't wait til next Tuesday when the commercials are done. Politics are a circus act anymore. I have no idea what any one candidate is actually going to attempt to do, only what the other guy did.

It's so bad here where I live that some organization is running attack adds against someone who is not even in office to get the stupid sheep to vote the other way just because they hate one or the other party.

The joke is that every one of them that says they will go to Washington and change Politics as usual. The definition of Washington IS "Politics as usual." Until there are more than just a choice between only two evils, nothing is gonna change.

While China and Japan owns our @sses due to our debt, we just keep getting involved in one war after another digging a deeper hole. There won't be any major changes before I am dead other than things getting worse!

[JohnMichael]

I agree I am sick of the commercials. I wonder how many people are so sick of politics that they say to hell with it and do not bother to vote. I will be voting but I may vote for the names I do not recognize because they annoyed me the least.

[ForeverAutumn]

We had municipal elections in Ontario on Tuesday. The budgets are too small in most municipalities for commercials, but there were a few commercials run for the Toronto mayoral candidates.

But there was a lot of stuff from people running for local councillors (representing neighbourhoods within the municipality) coming to us in the mail. Most of them were fine, promoting the candidate's experience and what they have done, and want to do, for the community. But one candidate sent a flyer that tried to discredit one of the other candidates. The flyer was filled with insinuations and no facts. I was actually considering voting for the candidate that sent the flyer, but her flyer changed my vote to the guy that she was trying to trash (who was my second choice anyway). I didn't want to vote for someone who would rather tell me how not to vote than why I should vote for her. The whole flyer sounded like sour grapes, and I couldn't understand why she picked on that one other guy when there were eight people in total running for that position.

The guy she was trashing won the position with double the votes of the next closest person.

The day after the municipal elections were over, the TV ads for our next provincial election started. The election isn't until October, 2011.

[GMichael]

We had municipal elections in Ontario on Tuesday. The budgets are too small in most municipalities for commercials, but there were a few commercials run for the Toronto mayoral candidates.

But there was a lot of stuff from people running for local councillors (representing neighbourhoods within the municipality) coming to us in the mail. Most of them were fine, promoting the candidate's experience and what they have done, and want to do, for the community. But one candidate sent a flyer that tried to discredit one of the other candidates. The flyer was filled with insinuations and no facts. I was actually considering voting for the candidate that sent the flyer, but her flyer changed my vote to the guy that she was trying to trash (who was my second choice anyway). I didn't want to vote for someone who would rather tell me how not to vote than why I should vote for her. The whole flyer sounded like sour grapes, and I couldn't understand why she picked on that one other guy when there were eight people in total running for that position.

The guy she was trashing won the position with double the votes of the next closest person.

The day after the municipal elections were over, the TV ads for our next provincial election started. The election isn't until October, 2011.

Unfortunatelly, negative campaining is just about all we see here. It's hard to find anything good about anyone running for any office.

[Hyfi]

Unfortunatelly, negative campaining is just about all we see here. It's hard to find anything good about anyone running for any office.

And that is pretty much because they can't do or change anything anyway so they just trash the opponent instead of feeding us lies about what they can/will do.

[GMichael]

And that is pretty much because they can't do or change anything anyway so they just trash the opponent instead of feeding us lies about what they can/will do.

What burns me is that our taxes keep going up, but services drop because “they don’t have the funds.” They claim that the increased population has put a strain on the system. What’s’a’matta? Don’t those new people who make up the increased population pay taxes as well? School taxes go up, but teachers get cut. Village taxes go up, but the police staff gets cut.
Where the heck is all the money going?
Then I see politicians vote themselves a pay raise. They drive around in cars that I can only dream of owning. I may not be a genius, but I think I’ve got an idea where the money’s going.

(not that I'm bitter or anything)

[Hyfi]

What’s’a’matta? Don’t those new people who make up the increased population pay taxes as well?

(not that I'm bitter or anything)

Ummm, no they don't and neither do the parents that keep pumping them out.

I am bitter about all the money that gets wasted at many levels.

[Feanor]

What burns me is that our taxes keep going up, but services drop because “they don’t have the funds.” They claim that the increased population has put a strain on the system. What’s’a’matta? Don’t those new people who make up the increased population pay taxes as well? School taxes go up, but teachers get cut. Village taxes go up, but the police staff gets cut.
Where the heck is all the money going?
Then I see politicians vote themselves a pay raise. They drive around in cars that I can only dream of owning. I may not be a genius, but I think I’ve got an idea where the money’s going.

(not that I'm bitter or anything)

A case could be made that American are under taxed. Check out tax rates in Scandanavian countries for example.

Of course over there people demand more of their governments and get more. There people see goverments as being of themselves, ("us"), and trying, if not always very effectively, to act on their behalf. In the U.S. people tend to see goverments as being "them" and somehow their enemy -- despite the fact that the U.S. system has more directly-elected governement positions than any country I"m aware of.

(Canadians are somewhere between these extremes, but perhaps favoring the US point of view: witness the scum-sucking Conservative Party presently in power here.)

[Woochifer]

Yep, and then you got the robocalls ... It's gotten to the point that my wife and I have stopped answering the phones because it's an endless stream of micro-targeted calls.

Of course, blanket ad coverage doesn't always work. Meg Whitman has spent $160 million (and counting) on her bid for governor, yet her poll numbers keep dropping and her disapprovals keep going up. Seems that the more people get to know her, the less they like her. Doesn't help that she's taken a hardline on illegal immigration, but knowingly had one living with and working for her for the better part of eight years.

Here in California, Meg Whitman's campaign for governor has been built largely on a bunch of lies, and nothing more than that. The idea that a CEO of a company has the skill to maneuver the political arena is ridiculous. A state is not a company, and it cannot be run like one either.

And that's a big reason why her poll numbers are dropping. She basically thinks that she can just step into the governor's office and start ordering everybody around. She forgets that she's got two other co-equal branches of government that she must work with. I noted very early on that she was saying the exact same stuff that Arnold Schwarzenegger was saying during the 2003 recall campaign. Looks like someone at the Brown campaign also took notice when they put together the "echo" ad, which is absolutely devastating because it's Meg's own words and transposes them with Arnie's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw_0a54S8po

What is more disgusting is her claims of Jerry Brown tenure as mayor of Oakland as a failure. That is an outright lie on every level. What Jerry Brown did for Oakland(as a former resident perspective), is revitalize a city that was quite frankly dead, and dying more and more day by day economically and culturally.

Yep, as another former Oakland resident, I also think that Brown did a decent job as mayor. For many reasons, Oakland is not an easy city to govern, and Brown managed to get a lot of much needed reforms and investments done during his tenure. And he did this while challenging a lot of entrenched power bases in Oakland, including many of his political allies.

California needs to take its medicine, and Brown very well might be the right guy for that job, because I think he will challenge the Dems in the Legislature as much as the GOP. He already did that when he was Oakland's mayor. Whitman seems like she would pick the wrong fights, and basically paralyze the Capitol for a couple of years while she figures out how to actually get things done.

Brown's always been a political gadfly, not afraid to think outside the box. Recall that when he ran for President in 1992 against Clinton, he pushed for a flat tax, which is the conservative holy grail. But, of course, he put his own twist on the idea by also proposing to eliminate all deductions (except for 1st mortgage and rent), which drew all sorts of howls of disapproval from flat tax stalwarts like Steve Forbes, who wanted to have their cake (a flat tax) and eat it too (keep all deductions so they can get closer to paying nothing).