Or, The Hate U Give (which I just learned was a book and a movie? Am I so out of touch?). Anyways, with the news that a Democrat has entered the Senate race in South Carolina to run against Lindsay Graham, I feel the need to say: Please do not give any money to a Democrat running a Senate race in South Carolina who does not have a reasonably chance of winning, or even a theory for how they would win (because they won’t). Democrats love giving money to candidates with nothing but a decent bio and...
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Trump: A (Disgusting) Play in Three Acts
Act the First: \”Well, I\’ll tell you the funniest is that before a show, I\’ll go backstage and everyone\’s getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I\’m allowed to go in because I\’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I\’m inspecting it,\” Trump said. \”You know, I\’m inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good.\” \”You know, the dresses. \’Is everyone okay?\’ You know, they\’re standing there with no clothes. \’Is everybody okay?\’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away...
Continue reading...Great Moments in Campaign Advertising: Confessions of a Republican
Often overshadowed by LBJ’s infamous “Daisy” ad, “Confessions of a Republican” is great mostly because it’s so weird. It’s also really long—four minutes and change. I haven’t been able to figure out when exactly it aired, or how really, because four-minute ad breaks aren’t particularly common even now (and TV commercial breaks have stretched drastically in recent years). In the ad, an actor (although the ad doesn’t say as much) talks about how he’s always been a Republican, but the party’s candidate that year, Sen. Goldwater, is too extreme for his comfort. Sure, this is mostly an artifact of the era during which party...
Continue reading...So what’s next?
This morning, we went over the preordained Republican takeover of the Senate. So, other than having to hear “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says” over and over, what will the next two years look like? For the most part, you’d be correct in assuming that it’d look a lot like the last four years: With Democrat Barack Obama still the president, and a Republican-controlled House and Senate, it’s going to be a loud not much. Yet even with that caveat, we can still look into what a unified legislature is going to at least try, and perhaps...
Continue reading...Voters decide the government is doing too much to help them
A hearty number of column inches (so anachronistic!) are being devoted today to explaining various reasons Democrats lost yesterday and Republicans won. It’s the long-running day-after tradition, and it’s rarely illuminating. But, you got to fill the papers, they say. Truth is, we all knew this was going to happen two years ago. Hell, we were all pretty sure even six years ago, when this class of senators was elected. Without a presidential election to buoy them, these unlikely Democratic faces representing deeply conservative states would not be long in their seats. The reason why is not surprising....
Continue reading...Politics are Stupid, Moderates Edition
There is no reason this sentence should ever exist: Wyllie (the Libertarian) gets his strongest support from independent voters who back Crist (the Democrat) over Scott (the Republican) 45 – 38 percent in a two-way matchup, but split with 36 percent for Crist and 34 percent for Scott, with 12 percent for Wyllie, in the three-way race. In other words, moderates are pretty much just people who have no fucking clue what the hell they’re voting for.
Continue reading...V+V Endorses: Adrian Fenty for the Mayor of the District of Columbia
“Last December, according to multiple sources, [D.C. Mayor Adrian] Fenty kicked a trash can, slammed a door, and screamed, “I’m the fucking mayor,” after learning that some much-hated New Jersey Avenue NW billboards were being removed without his being present for a photo-op.” Four years ago, then-Councilmember Adrian Fenty swept into the mayor’s office promising to take on the city’s biggest problems: an education system that was failing the city’s most disadvantaged youth; crime that, while lower than its 1990s peak, was still stubbornly high; and a city bureaucracy still weighed down by incompetence and entropy. Big...
Continue reading...Candidate for Congress Ben Qualye thinks Obama is the worst president ever
Ben Quayle, the 33-year-old son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, is running for a House seat from Arizona, released the above ad last week calling President Obama “the worst president in history.” You’d think he would have read this week’s conservative talking points. I’m referring, of course to a a list compiled by conservative bloggers of the worst 25 figures in American history—a list which President Jimmy Carter topped. Jimmy Carter: The worst figure in American history? The lowest of “all the gangsters, serial killers, mass murderers, incompetent & crooked politicians, spies, traitors, and ultra left-wing...
Continue reading...Meet Rick Barber, Patriot for Congress
Sure, he’s no Les Philip, or Dale Peterson, or even Tim James, but Rick Barber’s got a pretty inspiring ad here. Look at that: Founding Fathers. And they hated taxes just like he does. I actually really love how Rick conflates health care reform and the IRS, while totally and unceremoniously diminishing the Founders’ motivation for revolt to just a mere “tea tax.”
Continue reading...Primary Colors
There are several pretty important party primaries (and one special election) tomorrow around the country. Well, not important insofar as they’ll have any real impact, but important because they’ll guide the narrative leading to election day in November. Each party will see what messages worked, where the mood of the country is and is heading, and, probably less importantly, how big of a role the tea partiers can have in the election. I’ve been paying attention to most of the races since at least earlier this year, if not earlier, and have seen a stupid amount of...
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