Here's an idea for a revolutionary ad: Candidate looks into the camera to say: "My opponent is a decent, honorable person, but we disagree on issues A, B and C. If you share my views, vote for me."
Don't look for this one any time soon, because truth in advertising would make it unairable: not only a shortage of honorable opponents but an absence of issues in the ritual disembowelment that is now passing for election campaigns.
In West Virginia, a Senate aspirant runs a "reality" spot of two guys in a diner badmouthing his opponent, the sitting governor, that turns out to have been shot in Philadelphia with professional actors reading from a script, dressed in "hicky" clothes prescribed by the casting director.
In Connecticut, Gail Collins notes, Linda McMahon "has already spent so much money that residents of this small state may be wondering why she keeps deluging them with mailings and TV ads instead of just buying everybody a car."
Aside from attacking the character of her opponent, the former wrestling promoter is a "total wimp when it comes to taking a political stand...Her response to virtually any controversial question is that the matter needs to be studied. If you asked her...whether restaurants should be allowed to serve fried puppies, her answer would probably be that it should be looked into."
Elsewhere, TV screens are filled not with debates about issues or paeans to the virtues of those who want to be in Congress but character shredding of whoever stands in the way.
Democrats are in triage mode for the final weeks as covert money unleashed by the Roberts Court's Citizens United decision fuels tons of money from unknowable sources in an effort to take away their control of both houses
But judging from what they have been doing so far, their commercials won't be adding much substance to the campaigns.
Update: Instead of being submitted for an Academy Award, the West Virginia commercial is being withdrawn, presumably out of embarrassment that Republicans couldn't find local residents to employ in smearing their Governor.
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Too many of the political commercials that are littering our airwaves have one common denominator: corporate funding. These commercials have one goal: the complete corporate takeover of our government.
Corporations do not like uncertainty in their regulatory environment. The easiest way to add certainty into that picture is to control it.
The Citizens United decision by the Roberts Supreme Court opened the way for corporations to buy this election. If we, the voters, do not reject corporate-funded candidates, we will no longer have a democracy to worry about. We will be ruled by a corporatocracy.
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