advertising and other stuff. no, really.



Friday, October 31, 2008

The Amazing Race.











Good luck with that. After this whole thing is decided next week, we go back to our boring ad lives and start looking forward to another stellar halftime ad bonanza during the Super Bowl. Until then, see this race for what it’s been: A great lesson for campaigns in how to use as well as be abused by the internetz. What is amazing is that this race will finish without either candidate addressing three major issues: The right to life movement, illegal immigration and social security. No wonder they both talk about plumbers so much—takes their minds off all those things.

The revenue the government’s dipped into social security for to pay for other things? Cargo ships coming into NY unchecked? Illegals crossing the border shown so prominently on the Fox Hannity Channel border exposé? Forgotten until after the election. Hey, illegals may be carrying backpack nukes, but they’re carrying something more important—votes! The pro-life/pro-choice crowds have to run ads on Drudge to be heard because they sure aren’t hearing anything from either candidate.

McCain and Obama have been extremely careful and smart to avoid these debates publicly. When they do mention the more sensitive issues among their bases, volatile terms like pro-life becomes Human Dignity and the Sanctity of Life. Immigration? Let’s just call that one border security.

Even though both mention these things on their websites, who really reads those anyway? (Except for me and the 527s when they need fodder for their latest spot.) Marginalizing those issues as individual soundbites in a convention speech laundry list doesn’t count as addressing the problem. Far from it. Nor does leaving it up to their VP surrogates to shoulder that responsibility count as leadership either.

That either candidate will win without addressing those issues in any of the three major debates they had together is sad—and amazing.

3 comments:

M.M. McDermott said...

I'm glad someone else noticed how much issue-skirting took place during debates. What disturbs me most is how pundits applaud the ability of candidates to deflect rather than address issues.

"Priests for Life" yo! Representin' the straight 'hood frock posse. A'ight?

warren said...

illegals may be carrying backpack nukes, but they’re carrying something more important—votes!

Illegal immigrants can't vote.

Anonymous said...

@warren-Yep. Don’t think they’re not working on that problem as we speak. (That’s the satire part of the blog.)

Now the sad...

And the nearly 30,000 non-citizen active-duty soldiers currently serving and 100 or so who have died would surely like to see that changed, no?