Give Us Money, or Vote For Me!

Some political mailers I've received in the past few days. T-Minus 4 weeks until election day.
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The following is for the 50th Congressional District seat that was vacated by corrupt Republican Duke Cunningham. Republican Brian Bilbray won the special election to assume the remainder of Duke's term and has since become the incumbent. Challenging him is former school board member Francine Busby.

Even though the Duke pleaded guilty to bribery and other damning (for a politician) criminal offense, and even though Bilbray was himself a lobbyist before he finished up the Duke's term, Francine Busby has found herself having difficulty gaining traction in this heavily Republican district. Even with the help of a gerrymandered Republican district, Brian Bilbray feels it necessary to play the xenophobe card. Busby gave Bilbray additional cannon fodder in the campaign with an inadvertant gaffe at a rally in which she "You don't need papers to vote" to a man asking about helping her campaign.

As you can see from the pro-Bilbray ads below, the thrust of the mail campaign seems to be focused on this incendiary issue:



It seems apparent that one of the HUGE advantages of incumbency is the ability to set the tone and content of the campaign. By focusing on illegal immigration, Bilbray has succeeded in refocusing the debate on probably the most inflammatory issue in the district. Some may see this as a surprise given the Navy Town reputation that San Diego holds (where's the War on Terror in this debate?)






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This is for a bond measure for a local community college. The funny thing is, this college is prolly about 25 miles from my place, while another one, that I'm not able to vote on (different districts) is less than 3 miles from me.



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Front and back of an Ah-Nold mailer. This is the "issues" mailer. As you can tell, this flyer attempts to empasize the Termination of taxes.




Front and back of the other Ah-Nold mailer. This is the "character" mailer. From the pictures, Angelides looks mousy and almost sly, like a fox. Ah-Nold seeks to come off as optimistic and hopeful. A friend literally laughed out loud when she saw the pictures on this one.




Note: The two Ah-Nold mailers arrived as two seperate pieces of mail on the same day. This was the first time I've been a recipient of this type of ad strategy. I generally feel that this is more effective, simply because it creates two pieces rather than one big fold-out. It also seems effective in simplifying the message, which as an incumbent, would seem advantageous for Ah-Nold to do.

A Word is Born!, or "Swift-Boating": It's Not What it Sounds Like

This is an excerpt from an email I received from John "Swift Boat" Kerry:

"What is it these Republicans who never served have against Democrats who did?

Disgustingly, Mike Fitzpatrick, the Republican incumbent in Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district, has engaged in the lowest form of smear and fear politics. It's as if he took a page right out of the George W. Bush "how to slander a veteran" playbook.

At a press conference, Fitzpatrick stood in silence as the "swift-boating" of Democratic veteran Patrick Murphy unfolded. It's the same way George Bush stood in silence while John McCain's service was questioned. Fitzpatrick watched as his surrogates tried to destroy his opponent by disparaging the service of a veteran home from Iraq. Then after waiting for the damage to be done, he announced that he personally would never question Patrick Murphy's service to our country.

You and I can't let this cowardly strategy succeed. This is where the swift-boating stops. Act now to support Patrick Murphy and three other Democratic veterans running in "make-or-break" congressional races."

I don't know what's worse: Losing the '02 elections to a guy who 2 years later gets mid 30s approval ratings, or conceding that the defeat was as a result of the success of SwiftBoatGate. Do the Dems really wanna remind themselves of the less-than-aggressive (read: spineless) initial response of Kerry? The attack worked so well that it's even become it's own word!

-"Wow man, Fiddy Cent's new album hasn't even broke the top ten."

-"Yeah, well, it's because Ja Rule totally swift-boated him on his last track, bro."

The First Post, or Law and Order SVU - Africa!

As the first post to this newly minted blog, let's start things off right by setting the mood early...

"Since the early 1990’s, for example, young male elephants in Pilanesberg National Park and the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa have been raping and killing rhinoceroses; this abnormal behavior, according to a 2001 study in the journal Pachyderm, has been reported in ‘‘a number of reserves’’ in the region. In July of last year, officials in Pilanesberg shot three young male elephants who were responsible for the killings of 63 rhinos, as well as attacks on people in safari vehicles." [NY Times Magazine]

This is sort of like the childhood question of "Who would win in a fight? Batman or Superman? Ninjas or Pirates?", except this is nature/safari style. "Elephants or Rhinos?" Advantage: Pachyderms!

Sadly, the bizarre nature of these (crimes?) events are pointed out to highlight the increasing effects of human intrusion into animal habitat. Will further degradation of natural resources bring us to observe further inter-species aggression? What other inter-species conflict would rank up there along with the likes of "Geraldo v Springer?"