This one could go South...

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Ravioli

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but here I go anyway.

As the mid-term election draws near, I'm watching more local programming to see the advertisements. Normally I watch Sat TV to AVOID commercials, but in this season I like to watch.

It's non-partisan. The ads are funny if you ignore the party affiliation and just listen to "the important" policy issue(s) they are trying to sway you with. [Spoiler alert - There are none]

Anyway, as strange as it sounds, it's amusing to me.
 
I was just in CA for my sister's wedding. Caught a few commercials by accident and saw one that's bottom line was Candidate _____: They'll increase gas prices. To me that's insane that your boiled down argument against a candidate hinges on something that minor in the grand scheme of things. I am glad I don't have TV back home.
 
I'm a political junkie, but I HATE campaign ads. You can believe NOTHING that is said by any of them. Even if you like and support them, their ads are still going to be misleading.
 
All political advertisements are aimed at the single issue voter. Sadly, the majority of people that vote are single issue voters and can't see the wild fire raging behind the first beautiful tree in the forest.

I think the US should do as other countries and only allow a set amount of time, like 6 weeks or 6 days, to run political advertisements on Tv and radio.
 
Surprised that you find it humorous, but glad that it amuses you. I avoid political ads because I find them depressing.
 
Mason said:
I never watch commercials of any kind. Record everything, fast forward thru the garbage. Or Netflix.
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^^^^^THIS

I have zero tolerance for commercials now. I watch Netflix.

Furthermore, nowadays I only watch foreign made shows and movies. I reject Hollywood and their partisan PC worthless talentless junk.

I do make one exception: Young Sheldon. No laugh track is to do comedy right. And we've started recording that and FF through the commercials. So I have yet to see any political ads this cycle.
 
My long term view is to vote such that I see the biggest chance of having SCOTUS appointments go the way I like.
 
Zeldman said:
All political advertisements are aimed at the single issue voter. Sadly, the majority of people that vote are single issue voters and can't see the wild fire raging behind the first beautiful tree in the forest.

I think the US should do as other countries and only allow a set amount of time, like 6 weeks or 6 days, to run political advertisements on Tv and radio.
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Increasingly that "single issue" seems to be the voter's emotional state. Our capacity for critical thinking seems to be diminishing steadily.

I lived and worked in the Middle East and North Africa for many years. Even in the wealthiest of those countries (and some of the Persian Gulf nations are extraordinarily wealthy) the public education systems are awful. The top students from that region that go to North American or European colleges often fail miserably in their freshman year because they cannot compete with their western counterparts. Critical thinking skills are a large part of the gap.

I fear we are gradually becoming more like them. Maybe that explains the repetitive nature and simplistic messaging of current political adverts?
 
Rushie said:
I only watch foreign made shows and movies
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I pretty much only watch movies made before 1960.

I am even getting interested in silent movies. Those actors had to get a point across with acting, not reading a page out of the script. And no computer did all the acting, just real people.
 
Zeldman said:
I pretty much only watch movies made before 1960.

I am even getting interested in silent movies. Those actors had to get a point across with acting, not reading a page out of the script. And no computer did all the acting, just real people.
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Yes I went through a phase... from age 16 to age 30 ish if you call that just a phase, where I loved to watch movies from the 1930s and 1940s. The dialogue was soooo much better than today. They must have chimpanzees writing scripts these days. Characters give lots of meaningful gazes accompanied by the most insipid, uninspired boring verbal exchanges. It's unbearable.
 
I rarely watch broadcast TV but I was recently staying at a cabin where that was the only option. We were out of state so I didn't know most of the politicians, at least not well, but my god those ads! I wouldn't have been surprised to see one come on that literally said some candidate eats babies and kicks puppies. They were associating one guy with child molesters, apparently another one was trying to take life saving drugs away from cancer patients, then the usual corruption and this candidate doesn't care about our families stuff.

I was just agast, I guess because I hadn't seen this stuff in a while just how dumb it was. I wondered how stupid you'd have to be to be influenced by this stuff. Then I saw another ad... they started advertising a product and made it sound like something really new and revolutionary that would let you view high definition shows on your TV. It was an antenna... just an OTA TV antenna but they made it sound like a new invention, I wish I could remember the name of the stupid thing so I could find the ad because it was so ridiculous. A few more ads and it became clear the target demographic of this channel in this time slot was elderly people who are scared of everything and think everyone is trying to rip them off and/or rob them.
 
Sad part is that many of the ads aren't even from the candidate themselves, but made by PACs or local party members or groups of some kind. I've seen some that say in the small print at the bottom of the screen that this message is not even endorsed by the candidate, or something to that effect. Mud slinging campaigns sicken me. Unfortunately, some of the dirt is actually true, but there's hardly a way to wade through the bull crap and know what's what.

I rarely watch commercials at home, but the TV in my office at work is pretty much always running on a local channel, and I catch the stupid campaign ads from time to time.
 
Zeldman said:
I am even getting interested in silent movies. Those actors had to get a point across with acting, not reading a page out of the script. And no computer did all the acting, just real people.
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You can find YouTube video of Teller talking about why he became a silent magician. Basically the patter that most magicians were using was so stupid, redundant and occasionally untruthful that he refused to participate in the banal patter. He sometimes jokes that he hired Pen to provide the patter, especially as they take such an unusual approach to magic.
 
Ravioli said:
but here I go anyway.

As the mid-term election draws near, I'm watching more local programming to see the advertisements. Normally I watch Sat TV to AVOID commercials, but in this season I like to watch.

It's non-partisan. The ads are funny if you ignore the party affiliation and just listen to "the important" policy issue(s) they are trying to sway you with. [Spoiler alert - There are none]

Anyway, as strange as it sounds, it's amusing to me.
Click to expand...

Yeah. But it works. That’s why it’s done. And it ain’t new. Used to be buttons and posters and stuff. Now it’s this. The consequences may be a little more serious nowadays. Maybe not. Who knows?
 
Rushie said:
I do make one exception: Young Sheldon. No laugh track is to do comedy right.
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Weird thing is that it is a prequel to Big Bang Theory which has one. As such I've never seen BBT because I will never watch anything with a laugh track.
 
It seems the more popular the show , the more political smear ads there are.
 
Of course this is going to jinx it. I'm just speaking as a user of the message board... not a moderator.

It really makes me glad to see that we can have a few threads recently that are political-centric but stay for the most part on non-partisan issues, it seems that those that like to nuke threads are staying out of this or atleast keep their opinions to just the scope of the thread. That certainly wasn't always the case on PoA.

Of course I said that, so now multiple threads are going to descend into anarchy and I'll get the ban hammer out.
 
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It would be nice to see a commercial that didn't attack the other candidates and only addressed their agenda in a polite professional way. Or better yet a commercial that only highlights the the topics they voted for or against.
 
I"m sure it can't happen, but I'd love to see some mechanism whereby any ads that are blatantly misleading, or untrue, get pulled and a retraction ordered.
 
Gil Fulbright. The most honest politician ever. (Satire. This guy is to politicians what Bryan is to flight instruction).

 
jkaduk said:
Weird thing is that it is a prequel to Big Bang Theory which has one. As such I've never seen BBT because I will never watch anything with a laugh track.
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Very weird. And Young Sheldon is squeaky clean while BBT has far too much blunt sex reference. I admit I loved the nerdy humor especially in the army seasons but I can't abide the laugh track anymore and like most series the later seasons aren't as good.

My favorite no laugh track show is My Name is Earl.
 
In Florida (yes, I am a “Florida man”, but not the one you read about), there are several constitutional amendments on the ballot. With one exception (13) all the advertising has been vote “yes on #” or “no on #”. Not even a hint of what the amendment even addresses. Clearly this works or the political campaigners wouldn’t do it. 13 is the lone exception. Voting no on 13 is “anti-school and “anti-children”. 13 places the control over expanding gambling in Florida as a balloted referendum rather than a legislative action.

I’m appalled that content free advertising for something as important as constitutional amendments works. I’m not surprised unfortunately, but I am appalled.
 
And what the %]*}* is up with writing ballot propositions as double, and sometimes triple negatives. The occasional one that isn't difficult to follow almost throws you off after several of the twisted ones.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Of course this is going to jinx it. I'm just speaking as a user of the message board... not a moderator.

It really makes me glad to see that we can have a few threads recently that are political-centric but stay for the most part on non-partisan issues, it seems that those that like to nuke threads are staying out of this or atleast keep their opinions to just the scope of the thread. That certainly wasn't always the case on PoA.

Of course I said that, so now multiple threads are going to descend into anarchy and I'll get the ban hammer out.
Click to expand...

We’ve learned how to fly on the edge of our operational envelope.
 
-KLB- said:
And what the %]*}* is up with writing ballot propositions as double, and sometimes triple negatives. The occasional one that isn't difficult to follow almost throws you off after several of the twisted ones.
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It is all about perception. In roughly 1972, Maryland had a proposition which was worded roughly like this:

-- Should the Govenor be given a 300% pay raise?

Although true, this was misleading without context. It was defeated by a super majority. The proposition was written by a friend of the state house speaker who was in ****ing match with governor.
At the time, the Govenor was paid a part time salary which was below the legal minimum wage.

In 1974, the proposition again went to the public, this time worded like:

-- Would you like to raise the Governor's salary to XXX which will place MD as the YY highest paid Govenor.

It passed overwhelmingly.


Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
 
It also ticks me off that they often combine two unrelated measures in one amendment, knowing full well that half the people want only one of the items and the rest of the people want only the other one. I will be voting NO on all of those.
 
There is a Family Guy episode where the mom, Lois Griffin, is running for some position or other. She tries to talk sense and discuss issues, but it doesn't work, so she resorts to just saying "9/11", which does work!
 
It's sad that the voting public is so ignorant about what they're voting on. I am sometimes guilty. Yesterday we voted early and I neglected to learn up on the ballot like I usually do.

I'm in there with my paper ballot, vote straight party, turn it over and at the bottom I see a proposition to change our municipality annexation from tier 1 to tier 2. For or against.

Me: ?????

So I pulled out my smart phone and did a quick google. :D
 
Rushie said:
It's sad that the voting public is so ignorant about what they're voting on. I am sometimes guilty. Yesterday we voted early and I neglected to learn up on the ballot like I usually do.
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Sadly, I've talked with people who don't realize that under voting their ballot is an option. They go in for one or two races they care about, then do the rest of the candidates by their evaluation of their sign placement, or even more arbitrary criteria. When I hear of such, I remind them that they can go in and vote in a few, or only one race on the ballot if they want. I know at least one race I won't be voting on, and another that I'll be voting for the libertarian who has zero chance, simply to try and ensure that the clear winner doesn't feel like he has such a mandate to keep running amuck.
 
Rushie said:
It's sad that the voting public is so ignorant about what they're voting on.
Click to expand...

But one party wants it this way. I mean were would some politicians stand if the truth were known about them.?? Better to spread lies about the other party than have the truth known about themselves. This is why negative adds against the other party is sometimes successful, and why negative adds should be banned.
 
Zeldman said:
why negative adds should be banned.
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So hypothetically, if you have a council member (with prior P&Z experience) who as liaison to P&Z watched a zoning change to a new class that allows XYZ use, followed by a site plan for XYZ use, where the board states that this isn't the "highest and best use" I would expect the liaison to try to bring things back into line at the meeting, and if that failed, make sure that staff, including the city manager know about the issue, and ideally have the CM notify the rest of council. That way, when the applicant asks one of the other council members if they are going to have to sue the city over this zoning kerfluffle, they aren't completely blindsided, and have a positive story to tell about how the issue is planned to be involved. Instead, this second council member had to start the fixes from scratch, and eventually forced changes in the P&Z board.

So if I understand this correctly, gross negligence by elected officials like this should be protected from being exposed in political ads?

To clarify, "highest and best use" should have been the considerations for zoning. If someone thought that there was an issue it should have been discussed there, and the zoning change rejected. Once the zoning was approved the site plan item should only have reviewed if all the zoning requirements were met by the site plan. Anything else is out of scope at that phase.
 
I was listening to a story on voter participation on NPR. They interviewed a non voter and I quote: "I'm a gamer, I don't care". SMH
 
-KLB- said:
Sadly, I've talked with people who don't realize that under voting their ballot is an option. They go in for one or two races they care about, then do the rest of the candidates by their evaluation of their sign placement, or even more arbitrary criteria. When I hear of such, I remind them that they can go in and vote in a few, or only one race on the ballot if they want. I know at least one race I won't be voting on, and another that I'll be voting for the libertarian who has zero chance, simply to try and ensure that the clear winner doesn't feel like he has such a mandate to keep running amuck.
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I have a firm policy of never voting on an office or ballot measure for which I don't know enough about the candidates or the issues to form a opinion.
 
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