Have there been any good attack ads, lately?

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BLOT: (25 Oct 2010 - 11:53:20 AM)

Have there been any good attack ads, lately?

[Doug's Note: Did not mean for the "13 Days of Halloween" to take over my blog. Not entirely. But a mixture of trying hard to stick with it plus not having time to blog about other things have caused that effect. I'll work hard to correct that, this week.]

Have there been any good political attack ads out of Alabama, lately? How about where you live, if where you live is != Alabama? With the singular exception of Sunday night Fox (i.e. the animated block), I have not caught ad-based local TV in a month or two and advertisements there have largely involved zombie Billie Maze (get it?) promoting the Haunted Corn Maze. I do catch WHIQ on a regular rotation, but APT stations aren't going to run the sort of ad I am talking about.

Alabama can put out some real stinkers. Such and such is soft on crime, involved in corruption, was suspected of a murder a couple of years ago. No I wasn't, says such and such, but my opponent once killed some orphans, on tax payer money, for the joy of it. Not because he had to kill them, but because he wanted to kill them. I remember four years ago thinking about writing in Jesus as my vote for governor after the Riley-Baxley ads. At least that year had a couple of write-ins to make it feel like a proper circus. Remember Loretta Nall? "Vote Nall, Y'all!"? The picture with her showing off her cleavage and various 'Bama politicians and the tag-line: "Less of those boobs, and more of these..." (maybe vice versa in the wording, but you get the intent, right?). Good times.

This year started out strong. We had, "Anglish, doo u spack it?" by the Son of Fob. And dude on a horse talking about the Facebook profiles of his opponents. And there was some throw-down about believing in the Bible after Guy 1 said something about believing versus not-believing and Guy 2 said "BABYLONIAN WHORE MOUTH!" and Guy 1 pulled a retraction in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot. Who was that? That's right, it was Bradley Byrne. He said, "parts of the Bible that are meant to be literally true and parts that are not." Which he later clarified to mean "by some, I meant all and none, respectively". I'm paraphrasing, of course.

Since then, my entire exposure to the Alabama political spectrum has been utterly useless signs by the road—of which, the one proclaiming "Twinkle" catches my eyes the most, though I have no idea for what Twinkle is running—and the occasional AL.com post. Frankly, I avoid many of those out of fear of catching sight of some classic AL.com comments and losing IQ points. Then I get these mailers that proclaim absolutely surreal things like "Vote for X to put those FAT CATS in Montgomery out of business!" and it will show a Rush Limbaugh look-a-like with a cigar in his mouth and it is paid for by the Alabama Republican Party. I don't get what they are getting at? Do we really have "fat cats" in Montgomery? Are they entirely and plurally made up of only Rush Limbaugh? Will voting for X really "put them out of business"? Or the calls I get, where one candidate for something to do with school boards or something education said that she was a mother and a good wife. As a significant chunk of her qualifications. Surreal.

Robert Bentley is pushing for, and I quote, "the toughest ethics law that's ever been passed by any state in this country". He, of course, does not outline what this means. You know and I know that it means he is hoping that the whole B'ham scandal is still fresh enough that ethics are a chief concern. I link to this article because he then goes on to say the dirty Democrats will whip out a few more attacks. Fear might be involved in their craven behavior. It strikes me as fail because not only does he go on to "whip out" a few of those empty word attacks himself, but also most of those fliers and phone calls I have received have been Republicans attacking Democrats, however passive-aggressively and ineffectively. Welcome to Alabama politics as usual. He says that, his supporters get up a cheer: "He's right, those libs must be terrified!" And it does its job.

I'm digressing though. Back to my original question, where are these attack ads he is talking about? Have there been good ones?

TAGS: Alabama Politics

BY WEEK: 2010, Week 43
BY MONTH: October 2010


Written by Doug Bolden

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