I have a huge pet peeve: People who complain about attack ads.
First, they work. I hate it, but they do work. It sucks, and it makes for a miserable campaign season. But, if they didn’t work, they wouldn’t be the fine American tradition that they are today.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI[/youtube]
Can we at least mandate that attack ads must be rendered in 19th century American style prose? “Hatchet-faced nutmeg dealer” has some serious entertainment value.
My state senator is having to fight negative attacks for missing votes twice in her career, opponent hints she was at her vacation home in FL vs her father’s out of state funeral and her husband’s cancer surgery (according to her robocalls).
If these old school attack ads show us anything it is how public schools have completely destroyed the vocabulary of the public. Shows you how far education has fallen. I would like to see all attack ads so witty and well written.
Language evolves with or without public schools. You can’t argue that bald, blind, crippled and toothless are words we don’t use today. Although, as evidence to my first sentence, we do tend to use the word crippled differently these days – rarely applying to a person based on physical traits.
Yeah… the problem is, half the insults today would make you lose an election, because of their racist overtones.
The problem here in CA is they cal it negativity and an attack ad when it’s stating facts and the objective truth.