Exacerbating matters was Obama’s Oct. 2 speech in Chicago, in which he handed every Republican admaker fresh material that fit perfectly with their message: “I am not on the ballot this fall. . . . But make no mistake — these policies are on the ballot, every single one of them.”The New York Times (and some of you guys) won't see this as a wave, but the numbers are telling: Republicans picked up at least seven Senate seats, a number that probably will grow to nine seats after the dust settles in Alaska and Louisiana. (Democrats picked up six Senate seats in 2002 and eight in 1986.) Republicans gained 12 or maybe 13 House seats, leaving them in the largest majority since 1928. Democrats held on by the skin of their teeth to hotly contested Governors' seats in Connecticut and Colorado, and picked up Pennsylvania in a predictable landslide, but lost everything else, including Florida, Wisconsin, and even Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois. Republicans won every race they were expected to have any chance of winning, in addition to a solid handful no one would have expected, while generating nail-biters that came out of the blue, like the governor's race in Virginia and the Senate race in New Hampshire.
Great moments in campaigning
One of the worst political sound bites ever:
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My mother and sister are talking this morning about how to fix Facebook so it won't display any political content -- posts with words like "Republican" or "Democrat" will be banned. In 2008 and 2012 they didn't want to talk about it either, of course; they wanted peaceful adulation of the newly (re)elected President, and all the good he meant to do for people.
I suppose putting your head in the sand for a couple of years is one way of responding to things.
Come to think of it, my sister was also asking me a couple of weeks ago what would be involved in banning political ads from television. She didn't like the idea of repealing the First Amendment, though: she wants to be able to say whatever she wants, but doesn't want to have to hear what others want to say.
The "mute" button doesn't raise as many thorny Constitutional issues.
My second suggestion was that she should build a coalition with all her friends and just agree to vote against whoever first used a negative ad -- them or their proxies. Then you don't have to repeal the First, but you do have to give up on all the other issues you care about: it has to be disciplined, even if it means voting for dirty Republicans, or the effort doesn't work.
Of course, my "mute" button approach has nothing to do with whether ads are negative, only with my firm refusal to listen to anything further certain public figures have to say. I'll never understand the popular revulsion for negative ads. Empty, specious, dishonest ads, certainly, but in my experience those are as often "positive" as negative.
To be honest, I abolished television from my house entirely. I find I haven't the patience even for ordinary advertisements.
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