Final weekend

It’s the final weekend before the election. There are 600 new ads out on the airwaves. Probably most if not all negative.

Each election cycle there’s a discussion of whether this is the worse election when it comes to negative ads. I’m not sure that that is the case but it’s probably the most ads that have ever been on before. This of course means, since just about all seem to be negative, there are more negative ads to clutter up the screen.

The Republicans are of course the worst because they have so few positive issues to run on. One thing the Democrats were able to do was to nationalize the election around Iraq. It is so interesting to see Republicans running away from Bush’s polices. Policies these same Republicans help to put in place.

There’s the very funny ad by Michael Steele in Maryland saying Rumsfeld must go. A great ad but completely meaningless because Bush says he’s going to stay.

Then of course there are the smear ads. The one that ran in upper state New York. It said this candidate had made calls to a phone sex line and charged the tax payers. At the end an ominous voice saying what type of person would do that. The truth is the candidate didn’t make the call a co-worker did. He dialed the wrong number because part of the department of corrections was one number different then the phone sex line. The guy hung up immediately. The Republicans stand by the ad. I know that comes as a big surprise.

I wonder what this type of campaigning does to people in the long run. Over and over again it’s been shown that negative ads stick in people’s minds more than positive ads. But I wonder at what price. I would think after awhile people would just tune them out. I know I do. I either turn down the sound or switch that station where of course I inevitably run into another ad.

But like I said there are only a few days left. Only a few days left for Bush to say that if people vote for the Democrats they are voting for the terrorists for candidates who don’t want to keep America safe. Curious what happened to people having different opinions on how the war on terror is supposed to be waged. Oh I know what happened the failed policies of the administration are about to come back and bite the Republicans in the ass.

About time too.