Adventures of a Swing-State Voter - "Political Radio Ad for Romney to Air" edition

I mentioned Obama's radio ads, which try to capture the voice of the common American, but usually end up embarrassingly unhip. 

Of course, they are written by the same type of people who came up with Subaru's "Like punk, except it's a car" campaign.

Well, Romney's camp isn't immune to this.

While both Obama and Romney have both used people with actual insightful experience- employees laid off after Bain Capitol bought their company, Obama voters, Massachusetts residents, and small business owners.  Still, like the big corporations, both camps seem like they just need an actor who sounds like they know what they are doing.

So, Romney's ad goes something like this:

"I never vote a straight ticket.  I like Democrats and Republicans.  I voted for Obama.  However, this election, I care about the economy, so I find myself voting for Mitt Romney."

It's a middle-aged woman, because there's nothing weird about women liking Mitt.

Okay, it's going to be hard to come up with an ad that is blatant pandering, but also capture that soulless aspect that shows the ad is completely made up.

Still, I did it for Obama, so in the interest of bipartisanship, here goes.

I am a busy mom, what with soccer practice, church, and a hungry family.  I don't have time to keep up on the issues.  Usually, I flip a coin in the voting booth to decide.  I have friends on facebook who like Obama and Romney.  I voted for Obama, voted for Clinton, and defintiely would have voted for JFK back in the day.  However, this election is too important to leave to chance, and that guy with Touch of gray in his hair looks pretty awesome.  I am wearing Mittens on Tuesday, so I can remember to vote for Mitt.  I am not sure where I stand, but it's pretty safe to say any position I have on an issue, it's safe to say Mitt has held it at one point in his life.

Of course, my radio ad is abit too nuanced.   Maybe I should leave it to the words spraypainted on the Obama banner hanging outside his campaign headquarters - "Muslim Lier (sic)"

For more stories on the radio warfare, go here.

Adventures of a Swing-State Voter - "Just About Done Here edition

The Des Moines Register is releasing their last poll of the election season- which gives Obama a 47-42 lead here in Iowa (which is in line with my findings).

Early voting gives Obama a 22% lead.  Not surprising that the people who generally don't like any kind of change in their lives- are traditional to the point to waiting to Tuesday.

Iowa has a few other elections to keep an eye on.  Steve King is running to retain his seat againsyt Former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsach.  King should win easily in the heavily Conservative Western part of the state.  Still, Vilsach made him sweat which is saying something.  At the most optimistic, Vilsach is down by 5 percentage points.

The judicial retention election of Judge David Wiggins is also a big deal.  Wiggins was a judge appointed by a Republican governor, but none of that matters because Wiggins voted to overturn the defense of Marriage Act in Iowa, legalizing gay marriage in this state.

A strong effort headed by perennial GOP candidate Bob Vander Plaats was enough two years ago to toss three judges off the Court who had voted like Wiggins.

This year, Vander Plaatshas been hitting hard, but there was some early pro-Wiggins ad support early on.  There also is the lack of  the ambush surprise that came in 2010.

At this point, 38% of Iowans said they will vote to retain; 34% against retention; and 22% stating they were undecided.

Romney is here today.  Ryan is here tomorrow.

The Boss is here on Monday.

He will have Bruce Springsteen with him, as well.

It's not over, but you can see the end from here....

Your Point of View Sucks

This election will surely stand out for a variety of reasons. 

History will tell us those, but it is safe to assume that one of them will be 'This is the first election where we got in our friends' faces with our political views'.

I do hate that we have entered a time in politics where it is all about 'not giving an inch to your opponent', and no one cares about actually working together to solve problems.  (60 Minutes touched on this earlier tonight with an interview with Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, in which they said the right words, but gave the distinct impression that they were not particularly happy to be there together).

Although I have been pretty outspoken about my political views here, this forum is set up in such a way that you know what you are going to get.  Of course, only a dedicated few use LiveJournal in 2012.

So, of course I am talking Facebook.  I would note that I don't post political messages there (I hardly post there at all, in fact), I am okay with it.  I also have life-long friends who I have a deep political divide with.  However, i do find some solace in that as the years go by, things don't change.

Facebook has become such a part of people's lives though, that this is where things go awry.  FB is a medium in which we can push our viewpoints in front of dozens of eyes, and those eyes are varied- close friends, co-workers,schoolmates, relatives, etc.

I shrug it off (though I do find some fascination in finding out what that person I know to talk to, but barely am acquainted with, does when he/she goes in the voter booth), but even I am about sick of hearing about Mitt and Bronco every day.  Of course, we know some offenders are worse than others - people who disagree with me (of course), but also those that post things that would be quickly dis-proven by a quick trip over to Snopes.  In accordance with that, there is one post from someone I respect deeply (and mostly disagree with) that went for the extreme analogy - in this case, the word he used was 'traitor', but this also could be attributed to those who use terms like 'Nazi' and 'hater of America'.

USA Today did a story on this awhile back and it's not surprising.

A friend posted some negative information about presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Facebook, and Perlow, who considers himself a moderate, pointed out what he saw as flaws in that commentary.

That online disagreement escalated into an offline disintegration of their more-than-10-year friendship.

"He got really angry with me," says Perlow, 43. "He defriended me on Facebook and told me not to send him any more e-mails. He also defriended my wife, who had nothing to do with it."

Such, it seems we run into the problems of social media.  We feel free to post our innermost thoughts, even if we wouldn't go around saying it out loud. (Although maybe we make assumptions like that in real life, too.  An acquaintance of mine spoke highly in support of the Chik-Fil-A's CEO stand against gay marriage, something I am not okay with).

I don't know what the answer is, though hopefully I try to be on the side where I am only pushing my thoughts in front of people who are genuinely interested in them. 

It also shouldn't be surprising that enterprising developers already have a 'take the politics out of Facebook' program avaialble for those who want it.
 

Adventures of a Swing-State Voter - "Democracy -not for export" edition

America is the example of democracy.  We want everyone to follow our lead across the globe.

So we don't have a problem with a few United Nations observers traveling to Iowa to sit in on our election in Iowa, right?

Iowa's Secretary of State Matt Schultz has a problem with that.

If they show up, he's arresting them.

You may remember Schultz.  He has been fighting a one-man war against voter fraud, looking to pass laws and try to ferret out voter fraud wherever he sees it.  His extensive work this summer has already brought 2 Canadians and one Mexican to justice.

I don't know that I necessarily disagree with Schultz's views.  it's just that for some reason I don't feel his thoughts exactly match what comes out of his mouth.

I suspect Schultz thinks the observers are either some United Nations/New World Order or some Marxist/Socialist plot to rig the election in Iowa for Obama.

Besides, Schultz has been quiet about Romney supporters who have been training poll workers in Iowa to ask for photo id (photo id isn't required to vote in Iowa).

The election is about over, but we are stuck with a couple of more years of Schultz's paranoia.