Dirty Politics Backfire?

Back in 2012 I wrote a post about how boring the television coverage of the Republican and Democratic Conventions had become, compared to what I remember from my childhood.

Well, one thing's for sure, the TV coverage of the Republican and Democratic DEBATES has been far from boring! The level of name calling, crude language, and hateful speech seems to have escalated beyond anything before. That's probably not true, but it sure seems that way. I'll leave that call to the true historians.

We live in a state where the incumbent Senator has been in office since Moses, and for the first time in memory he is scrambling to defeat a young whippersnapper of an opponent.

And, likely following the lead of the presidential primary races, the local TV advertisements have become decidedly "dirty politics". I WAS still debating on voting on the incumbent, mainly because of his position on some powerful committees, or voting for "new blood", figuring it was time for new ideas.

But the incumbent has released a particularly nasty TV advertisement that just hits me the wrong way, and it had the exact opposite effect the candidate intended. It has tipped me over to the young candidate.

So how about you? Are you willing to gloss over the offensive speech of these heated campaigns, or do you get swayed to vote more "against" one candidate, rather than a true "for" another one? Do the robo-calls, television advertisements, billboards, etc., sway you? Or is it the substance of what the candidate says he or she will do once they are in office?

What's Wrong with a Brokered Convention??

I find it amusing how little history most people seem to know. Hubby and I have been amazed when we hear commentators making the possibility of a brokered Republican convention sound like the most horrible thing that could ever happen to the Republican party.

When we were growing up TV was in its infancy, so they showed ALL of the Convention process on TV. And it was not at all unusual for there to be quite a few pollings of the delegates before a candidate was picked. It was fascinating to watch and listen to all the talk about backroom conferences and deal making. By the time a candidate was picked, we really felt like we had seen history in the making.

Nowadays the conventions are just plain BORING, as they are a coronation ceremony at best.

Maybe, just maybe, this will be a convention worth watching!

GO VOTE TODAY!

Today is Election Day, a day I've been personally voting on for 46 years straight. Whether it's raining, cold, inconvenient, or you think it won't matter if you do or not, go VOTE! Yeah, yeah, I know you've been told that lots of times before, but if you are an American citizen of legal age to vote, you should exercise this right. If we become so complacent or apathetic as a nation that voting is no longer considered to be important, then we really are in decline, as some of the more negative folks are saying.

I don't pretend to tell you who to vote for, or which party to support. But voting is an act of Patriotism just as surely as serving in the military. It doesn't cost anywhere near as much, of course, but it's a price we can all pay. So go be inconvenienced, if you have to. At least you won't be driving down a road expecting to be blown up any second...yet.

My First Presidential Election - The Man with a Hole in His Shoe

Photographer William M. Gallagher won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for this photograph of Stevenson on the campaign trail in 1952. The image of the "Man with a Hole in his Shoe" remained with Stevenson and served as a symbol of his efforts during the 1956 presidential campaign.

copied from the Princeton University Library

This 1952 election is the first one that I was old enough to get interested in, plus that's about when we got our first television. That year Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon won over Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman, from my own state - Alabama. We learned about the democratic process in school that year, and our teacher made it all fun, mock election and all. Of course, those were the days when the national conventions were really interesting, as there were sometimes many, many ballots of delegates before the Republican and Democratic candidates were chosen.

Obviously, there is no way that the Republican convention will be like that, but it is possible that the Democratic Convention could be very interesting this time, particularly since the Democrats have what they call Super Delegates. These power brokers are not committed to any candidate, which can make for an interesting convention.

Now add in the Ralph Nader Green Party candidacy, a situation that many Democrats believe cost Al Gore the election last time, and we could be in for some great convention watching.

And it's been a long time since I watched either convention, because they have been very boring to me for years. Just like some folks enjoy a stock car race more if there are lots of wrecks, I think I will enjoy the Democratic Convention more if there is some drama in the candidate selection process. Talk about Reality TV!!!

Hmmm.... Looks Like I'm a Conservative Republican

I still remember when I registered to vote. Back then, you had to be 21 to vote, and at that time you had to pay a poll tax. In Alabama, you also had to pass a quick test to be sure you could read English proficiently. I don't know if that was the case outside the South or not. I do remember that getting rid of those requirements was one of the goals of the Civil Rights Movement. Being white, I never knew if it was true that "Colored" people were given much harder materials to try to read than "White" people, but that is what protesters claimed at the time. As I remembered, the poll tax was just a couple of dollars, so I never did understand what the big fuss was about that.

As far as I can remember, I have voted in every local, state, and national election since then. I consider it my duty as an American to exercise this right, and believe in the old adage that you can't complain about politics unless you vote.

Now that the caucuses are over, and the candidates are starting to advertise on TV in Alabama for the upcoming Primaries, I thought it might be interesting to take one of these online quizzes that are supposed to tell you which candidates match a person's views on a variety of issues. As all such quizzes go, there were some questions where I didn't like any of the answer choices, but all in all this one was very thought provoking. And the results were interesting and useful to me personally.

Does that mean I'm going to vote for the candidate who matched my views? Not necessarily, but I think it does give me an idea of which candidates I should pay the closest attention to.

So, here's the results of my quiz:


80% John McCain
75% Mitt Romney
74% Mike Huckabee
65% Fred Thompson
61% Tom Tancredo
59% Bill Richardson
58% Hillary Clinton
58% Rudy Giuliani
57% John Edwards
57% Barack Obama
51% Chris Dodd
48% Ron Paul
44% Joe Biden
40% Mike Gravel
32% Dennis Kucinich

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz