What attack ads made you go "what the hell?"

KingMerv00 said:
I'm fairly liberal and the Boxer clip struck me as rude. Yes you are a Senator but to INSIST on being called by that title in public is fairly pompous.

I think it is a character flaw, not a political issue and it alone would not stop me voting for someone.
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I have to wonder if (a) he was addressing male members as "Senator," (b) if he hadn't and would have been corrected by a male if anything would have been thought about it and (c) if she called him "Mr." and was corrected by him.... well...

I don't do clips at the office, so I'm clueless about (a), but I have this pet peeve about women being seen as uppity bitches for behavior men get a pass on.
 
Kestrel said:
Congressman Ed Perlmutter was attacked for doing a cartwheel. It didn't seem to matter to the voters in his district.

After his victory speech, Perlmutter did a couple more cartwheels. :D
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Well, at least he wasn't arrested by Italian police. They probably didn't find him sexy enough.

:boxedin:
 
Travis said:
Now that it's all over I can't help but try to understand an attack ad we had here in California. It was by Carly Fiorina against Barbara Boxer. It shows Boxer telling a testifying military man to stop addressing her as "Ma'am" and to instead call her "Senator" because she worked hard for that job. Then it cuts to Carly stating she approved the message.

What the hell?

What is the point of that? That she can't be addressed as "Senator?" That she doesn't have the right to prefer one honorific over another?

Okay, so that may not matter now that Carly's campaign went down in flames but were there any that made you wonder exactly what the point was?
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The way she treated the general gives me a hint as to what type of person she is and that might influence my decision. But generally it would not be the top of my voting priorities.
 
Suddenly said:
I have to wonder if (a) he was addressing male members as "Senator," (b) if he hadn't and would have been corrected by a male if anything would have been thought about it and (c) if she called him "Mr." and was corrected by him.... well...

I don't do clips at the office, so I'm clueless about (a), but I have this pet peeve about women being seen as uppity bitches for behavior men get a pass on.
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I was wondering the same thing. Did the general refer to male senators as Senator or Sir? If he was addressing the men as Sir, then Boxer was being a douche. If the general was referring to the men as Senator then the douchiness is his.
 
Well, it was not exactly an ad, but again, referring to John Raese and his run for West Virginia Senator ….

Rush Limbaugh plugged Raese on his radio show by explaining what a nice guy Raese is: and Limbaugh could speak from experience since Raese has a locker right next to his at their country club in Florida.

That sort of endorsement really did not help out Raese very much since Raese’s own wife was registered to vote in Florida (and not West Virginia), his kids went to school in Florida, and he owned a house in Florida. In fact, there some serious question as to the residency of John Raese since he spent so much time in Florida (and John Raese never did firmly establish his residency by showing his taxes).
 
KingMerv00 said:
I'm fairly liberal and the Boxer clip struck me as rude. Yes you are a Senator but to INSIST on being called by that title in public is fairly pompous.

I think it is a character flaw, not a political issue and it alone would not stop me voting for someone.
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I don't think it would sway most reasonable people at all, and there's the problem with the ad. It may make conservative base voters go, "Ooh, look at that nasty, liberal (w)itch being rude to a *GENERAL!*" but California is not a state where you can win by ginning up the conservative base.

I guess Fiorina's, "I'm prepared to oppose my party when it's wrong," ad was her play to swing voters. Since she gave no examples of issues on which she might oppose her party, it struck me as empty and unconvincing.
 
It wasn't the words, it was the peevish tone in which Boxer uttered them.

Surprised nobody's mentioned the Aqua Buddha ad:



End faith-based initiatives? A cause that should be near and dear to the hearts of the atheists around here.

Oh, wait, it was an ad against Rand Paul. That excuses it.
 
Attack of the 50 foot Nancy Pelosi. And ad that ran in Pennsylvania. I just love those folks who thought they were running against a Californian.
 
Brainster said:
It wasn't the words, it was the peevish tone in which Boxer uttered them.

Surprised nobody's mentioned the Aqua Buddha ad:
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I was about to bring that up if you hadn't. I don't know if that ad changed anyone's vote, but a lot of people I know were pretty... I'm not sure if disgusted is the word, but pretty put off by it.

Really, it made Conway look like a buffoon, is what it did. Which is too bad, because Conway's stance on issues seemed to be far more specific and grounded in reality than Paul's.
 
Shadow minister Woolas vows to fight election decision.

Shadow immigration minister Phil Woolas has vowed to fight on after his 2010 election win was declared void and he was suspended by the Labour party.

Mr Woolas faces a three-year parliamentary ban after being found guilty of deliberately making false statements about a Lib Dem rival in campaign literature.

A by-election must be fought in Oldham East and Saddleworth, pending appeal.

Mr Woolas won the seat by 103 votes over Lib Dem rival Elwyn Watkins.

But his opponent argued the false allegations probably swayed the vote in such a close contest.
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Read, learn and inwardly digest, colonials! :D

Rolfe.
 
Travis said:
Now that it's all over I can't help but try to understand an attack ad we had here in California. It was by Carly Fiorina against Barbara Boxer. It shows Boxer telling a testifying military man to stop addressing her as "Ma'am" and to instead call her "Senator" because she worked hard for that job. Then it cuts to Carly stating she approved the message.

What the hell?

What is the point of that? That she can't be addressed as "Senator?" That she doesn't have the right to prefer one honorific over another?

Okay, so that may not matter now that Carly's campaign went down in flames but were there any that made you wonder exactly what the point was?
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Any ad by a Republicker or Teabagger made me ill. The lies were just so obvious and pathetic.:)
 
pipelineaudio said:
Neil Abercrombie's claim that the republican contender had killed the superferry.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Superferry
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Hawaii ads were pretty vicious this year, relative to previous elections.

The one that got me going "huh?" Was the ad attacking Hanabusa for moving to qualify for a different district - did someone just not remember that Djou did the exact same thing for a state seat a few years back? How did that pass the "can this possibly come back and bite us in the behind" test?

On the flip side, there were some pretty transparent scare-tactic anti-Djou ads, but nothing I can recall that made me go "wha?"
 
Over the top attack ads are more likely to backfire than help, I think. Most of them stretch the truth badly to make the allegations sound more serious, but I think the real effect of that is that the accusation sounds like a stretch, and people assume it is a stretch and tune it out. Attack ads in general can obviously be effective, but they have to at least be plausible. There are a lot of amateurs cutting ads, and it shows.
 
uk_dave said:
You won't get anywhere with that one Rolfe, lying in advertising is probably protected under the first amendment or something.
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Here's the thing: very rarely are these attack ads lies. Politicians (at least in the U.S.) are quite adept at avoiding outright lies in their ads. The vast majority (at least that I have seen) tend more towards: zeroing in on an embarrassing but irrelevant moments, dredging up activities from decades ago, taking quotes or facts out of context, using inflammatory language, and asking leading questions. It's very similar to conspiracy theorist tactics. But in most cases, they state things that are technically true, even if the "between the lines" implication aren't.
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
Here's the thing: very rarely are these attack ads lies. Politicians (at least in the U.S.) are quite adept at avoiding outright lies in their ads. The vast majority (at least that I have seen) tend more towards: zeroing in on an embarrassing but irrelevant moments, dredging up activities from decades ago, taking quotes or facts out of context, using inflammatory language, and asking leading questions. It's very similar to conspiracy theorist tactics. But in most cases, they state things that are technically true, even if the "between the lines" implication aren't.
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The outside groups created a lot of ads this year that were outright lies. About what you would expect in a system were millions can be spent to smear a candidate with no disclosure of who is behind the ads.
 
Crossbow said:
Well, it was not exactly an ad, but again, referring to John Raese and his run for West Virginia Senator ….

Rush Limbaugh plugged Raese on his radio show by explaining what a nice guy Raese is: and Limbaugh could speak from experience since Raese has a locker right next to his at their country club in Florida.

That sort of endorsement really did not help out Raese very much since Raese’s own wife was registered to vote in Florida (and not West Virginia), his kids went to school in Florida, and he owned a house in Florida. In fact, there some serious question as to the residency of John Raese since he spent so much time in Florida (and John Raese never did firmly establish his residency by showing his taxes).
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Especially dumb when said country club has never had a non white member.
 
Kestrel said:
The outside groups created a lot of ads this year that were outright lies. About what you would expect in a system were millions can be spent to smear a candidate with no disclosure of who is behind the ads.
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That may be. I was more referring to candidate ads. They tend to be very careful about the information they put in the ad. They'll imply and insinuate a lie all day and night, but they usually won't state it outright.
 
Spindrift said:
Suddenly said:
I have to wonder if (a) he was addressing male members as "Senator," (b) if he hadn't and would have been corrected by a male if anything would have been thought about it and (c) if she called him "Mr." and was corrected by him.... well...

I don't do clips at the office, so I'm clueless about (a), but I have this pet peeve about women being seen as uppity bitches for behavior men get a pass on.
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I was wondering the same thing. Did the general refer to male senators as Senator or Sir? If he was addressing the men as Sir, then Boxer was being a douche. If the general was referring to the men as Senator then the douchiness is his.
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I watched the part of the hearing where this came up epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...aring_id=c7026be1-802a-23ad-4fa3-4c8ed0b6d074. The general was introduced at ~28:50. He addressed Senator Pelosi as Madam Chair while making his opening statement. The general didn't address any male Senator until after Senator Pelosi made her request at ~42:45 (and she did address him as General). The first male Senator was introduced at ~46:30. The general did address him as Senator. I didn't watch the whole hearing, but I assume he continued to use Senator.

I don't think she was being a douche. She seems to be naturally abrasive, but her request wasn't different in tone from the rest of what I saw in the hearing.
 
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