When I was in Boston over the last few days, I was in a waiting room for about two hours and, as usual, they had a TV set on. I noticed that no one, neither the staff nor the visitors, was watching the TV and so I asked the person at the desk whether it could be turned off or the volume at least lowered so that I could read my book. I was seated as far from the TV as possible but it still distracted me. When the person tried to comply, it turned out that the volume setting was fixed.
As a result, I was forced to listen to the TV and the number of ads for local elections was astounding. Many were for and against the expansion of charter schools and the legalization of marijuana, two hot issues in Massachusetts, but there were also many for or against Kelly Ayotte who is running for re-election to the senate in neighboring New Hampshire. These commercials were dreary and unimaginative and after seeing them a couple of times, you want to throw things at the TV. It made me wonder why more of them are not like the one below for a local county commissioner race in Texas.
OMG -- Mano, what a scream of an ad!
Can we somehow vote for his wife, too? (Assuming that’s not an actor playing his wife).
It takes some real confidence to be this self-deprecating. You would never, ever see an ad like that from Trump. You might see Clinton try it, but my sense is that the gag would likely fail to “land”. She strikes me as similar to Margaret Thatcher, in that her understanding of humour is academic and intellectual. She knows jokes exist, and she gets that she has to make one from time to time in order to fit in, but she’d be happy if she never had to tell a joke again in her life, because ultimately she really doesn’t have a sense of humour. Which is fine -- a sense of humour is not something I require in a leader.
Trump has a sense of humour. He has a sense of humour like Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas has a sense of humour.
Yesterday I want to a sports bar to watch my college football team lose. I noticed some channels (e.g. Washington-Utah game) were running pro-Trump ads sponsored by the NRA. The volume was down, but the screen text seemed to indicate that Hillary will lie about anything. If someone is upset about Clinton’s lies, then Trump should not be their choice. He has taken campaign lying to new levels.
Mr Daugherty is my current county commissioner and he’s running to be re-elected. He’s GOP. One of the few Republicans that can actually get crossover votes.
It’s one of those things where the more local the politics the less the party label matters. It’s a pretty thankless job, but they do set county tax rates and pass county policy. Sorta like a city-council for the county.
My brother works for the Turner and handles all the TVs at the Orlando airport. The electronics in the TVs are specifically designed to periodically (I think it was every 5 minutes) auto-level above the the ambient noise, so you can always here the TV.
Just another instance of capitalist marketing imposing itself on a captive audience. Although the alternative might be watching the Beloved Leader with martial music and propaganda.