I don't know why anyone of our Sentors or House members would give any loopholes to, as you put it, 'fat cat buddies" or "corporate bastards". I do know that the legislators have subsidized suspect organizations like ACORN, but I also know that many legislators view ACORN as an organization which deserves subsidies. I don't know whether ACORN can be characterized as "fat cat" or "corporate bastards" but after viewing members of ACORN patrolling the front of a poling place and using foul language and threats with clubs, I am quite sure they can be reliably characterized as plain old "bastards"
Talking of bizarre attack ads - this one, made by the Carly Fiorina camp against rival Republican Tom Campbell in the California Senate primaries, will make you lost for words:
If I can just highlight a pet peeve: amidst all the weirdness in this commercial it's easily lost, but no, that budget they speak of did not "literally set the stage for the recent decline of California". There is no literal stage here, and if there were, a budget couldn't have literally set it, ok?
i love, love, love an attack ad, i don't support any one party in any race, so mock and lie, i don't care, it's funny
unfortunately we don't do this as much in canada
i want, this candidate eats babies, and that candidate rapes small forest creatures, the more outrageous the better, the electorate is to stupid to know any better, so go for it
0 Replies
DrewDad
1
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Thu 4 Feb, 2010 09:56 am
@nimh,
OMG! Tom Campbell is a furry!
Also, I learned that a "political outsider" can have a proven track record in politics.
Hey, it's more than the Peace and Freedom candidate got.
0 Replies
nimh
1
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Thu 13 Oct, 2011 12:34 pm
Polish elections are always good for a few outrageous campaign ads, though it seemed surprising to see the left-wing, ex-communist SLD go down this particular road:
[A] plucky young candidate from the leftist SLD deploys a cringeworthy crime spoof to highlight the cleavage in Polish politics. SLD is meant to be the most politically correct party in Poland. You decide.
Another "plucky young candidate" from the SLD went even further:
A political candidate in Poland has stripped off her clothes for an election video.
SLD representative Katarzyna Lenart, 23, sparked controversy over the advert but defended herself by claiming that it was the best way to attract young voters.
"My campaign targets young people," she said. "And young people are only interested in controversial stuff, unfortunately."
Lenart, who is hoping to be elected in Lublin, appears fully-dressed at the beginning of the video before she starts removing items of clothing.
Eventually, she takes off her pink bra and the word "censored" covers her breasts.
A message then appears, reading: "Want more? Vote SLD. Only we can do more."
An SLD spokesmoan complained: "I don't think this sort of ad has its place in left-wing politics. We should be enacting a ban on sexist advertising."
No idea how these two particular candidates fared, but the SLD overall performed very weakly, gaining just 8.2% of the vote, its worst result ever. Ironically, it suffered greatly from the emergence of a new libertarian, anti-clerical party, "Palikot's Movement," which came out of nowhere to win 10% of the vote, especially among urban, young voters, on a platform of legalizing drugs, abortion, gay marriage and generally lambasting the catholic church and the nationalist right. The same voters, maybe, who might possibly have been tempted by raunchy ads like these.
To explain: the SLD's past popularity had increasingly relied on its role as stronghold of secular politics in the face of catholic-conservative dominance, rather than any traditional left-wing workers rights platform - so many of the materially better off voters that supported the SLD for that reason must now have switched to this new party. Meanwhile, it's long been the catholic/nationalist/conservative right that's rhetorically excoriating the dangers and excesses of capitalism and standing up for the little man and the losers of the economic transition, so that camp has long poached much of any small-town industrial worker electorate the SLD might still have had.
Hence the SLD's worst result ever, again leaving the Polish electoral landscape dominated by two right-wing parties, if two right-wing parties of very different stripes: the economically liberal, pro-Western Civic Union and the nationalist, conservative, clerical Law and Justice.
