Oh my gosh! I've never lived in a swing state before during a presidential election. Maryland is decidedly liberal and Texas, conservative. That meant the candidates did not spend huge amounts of time and money bashing each other. Here in Ohio, which must be swing state central, the airwaves are full of campaign commercials. Each one is more and more off putting as well. So much negativity. While I pretty much DVR everything I want to watch on broadcast TV I still have to fast forward through the glut of head banging. I can't wait for the election to be over and we can get back to inane drug advertising.
I wouldn't mind the swing state..... PA votes the way it votes regardless of popular vote. Makes you not even want to bother voting since it doesn't seem to matter :frown2:
I wish there was a way to show them I've voted already* and the commercials should not be shown to me. Now that would be grand.. *Texas Absentee Ballot already mailed in.
We get 5 or 6 calls a day in nh...polls, about 5 pieces of mail, adds, and nonstop adds on tv....that and now they are actually knocking on our door....almost every day....go figure.
I do not agree with Obama about much, but during the last debate he made a comment about too many TV ads. I couldn’t agree more. I live in Northern Virginia; I can’t imagine what Ohio must be like.
We're also considered a swing state (IA) and we seem to be completed inundated with telly and radio commercials, robo- and real human phone calls, and repeated physical presence of the candidates... ...and we're not even close to the electoral vote slot machine jackpot represented by OH and FL. I can't even imagine how bad it must be for you folks. :frown5:
I don't know about robo calls here as I have a TX based Cell number. I've been told the volume is horrible. 8-10 calls per day. I'd be leaving the phone off the hook in that case. It's not only the national offices that are inundating the airwaves, The local campaign attack adverts are particularly nasty. Most all of them are not from the candidates but from local PAC's that do not have to answer to anyone. Nov 7 can't come fast enough.
I hang up my cell phone for calls and txt several times a day. My home phone rings at lease 3 times a day. Please someone pass a law to stop robo calls and election calls. When I do get a real person calling I ask them who they want me to vote for. When they answer I say well by you calling me you just confirmed my vote for the other guy FOR BOTHERING ME AT HOME !
I'm in Ohio. 8-10 on the home line. Another 4-6 on the office line. We dvr everything to skip the ads. 2/3 of the commercials are political ads. I would love to not live in a swing state.
I've gotten Lil' B.A.D. to yell "Mittens" every time the home phone rings because we have mostly been getting calls from the Republican candidates. It is working perfectly to annoy M.A.D. (who I blame for all the calls in the first place)!
Good or bad it is part of the process, I'm one for outlawing all telephone solicitations of every kind. That said there is much at stake over the next four years, so a few weeks of ads on TV and hanging up on telephone callers is a small price to pay compared to the last four years....
Letterman has Rachel Maddow on last night. Irregardless of her political leanings she does have some interesting insight. She was saying how it's come down to the race to be president of Ohio and how my new home state is the key. minimark, I know it is all part of the process and we should should be glad we have this process as democracy, even our odd US version of it, is still probably the best system out there. But I still say all the negativity could be redirected to something positive. Then again, I think we all know I have this rose colored, glass is half full, cheery outlook on things.
I disagree. The money spent on these campaigns is obscene. Just think about how all the money spent on all the campaigns and conventions could have been re-invested into the economy. I'm not just saying this election year, but across the last decade or more.
It is invested in the US Economy. Just think of all the people involved here. You have ad agencies, creative folks, camera operators, boom operators, cue card guys, actors, writers. Plus the ad buys at all these local TV and Radio stations. The sign guys that make all these signs people stick in their lawns. it goes on and on. These campaigns keep a lot of people employed for a short time.
Good point, I wasn't thinking about the fact that politician's real view of the future is only as long as the term of the office they are campaigning for.
Hopefully all you "swing state" dwellers will get out and vote to reverse the trend. As for us here in the central valley of sunny CA, we don't really have a voice..... That seems to rest with the folks in the Bay and parts of SoCal. Certainly not my voice of reason.
I place very little value in anything Rachel says. It would be nice to see all the candidates talk about their plans only, but alas Mary Poppins was a fictional character and we both know it is much easier for people to find faults in others than to find a solution themselves. Our system as flawed as it is, is the best there is if one is to uphold the first amendment. Free speech means that we will always have to hear others say things we disagree with or in another term, democracy in action.