Greedy Liberal Trial Lawyers
It seems that every election year, politicians come out of the woodwork like so many cicada’s after an Orkin spraying. They all want one thing - to convince the voters that they’re the best choice for the job. How do they go about this? Why, surely it’s by talking about the issues and why they’re the ones most qualified for the job. Right?
Unfortunately, no. In order to do that, the politicians would have to have some positive talking points about themselves. Tragically most of them don’t have a very strong record, or don’t want to pin themselves down to any one opinion, since it could potentially alienate a key segment of the voting population.
So they take the low road… that is, negative campaign ads.
Here in the great state of Alabama that includes trying to paint your opponent as a liberal. Virtually every campaign ad supporting a Republican candidate contains the phrase “…and [my opponent] is backed by greedy liberal trial lawyers.” They also try to tie the opposing candidate to the likes of (OH NOES!) John Kerry, or even (GOD FORBID!) Hillary Clinton.
First, let me say that I have not a single thing against John Kerry. Did I vote for him? No. I didn’t vote for Bush, either. However just because I didn’t vote for him, it doesn’t mean that I’m particularly against him. After all, look at the trained monkey he ran against. George Bush has driven our country into the ground in the last six years, and will continue to do so for the next two. More Americans have died under his watch in Iraq (over 2800 as of today) than died in the attacks on 9/11. So in other words these negative campaign ads are stating that their opponent supported somebody other than Bush. Trust me, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
As regards Hillary, I’m less enthused about her. She strikes me as an opportunist who’s more interested in political office than she is in actually helping out the people who she’s supposed to represent. But then again that’s the realm of just about any politician; she’s just more blatant about it than most.
In any event, this next Tuesday I will be casting my vote, and I assure you that I will be casting it against the negative campaigners. After all, while they’re complaining that their opponent is backed by greedy liberal trial lawyers, they’re failing to mention the fact that they’re backed by insurance companies and other special interest groups. And while they’re pandering to the lowest common denominator, I’ll be casting my vote for the candidates who are not slinging mud.
I realize that in a lot of cases, mud is slung from both sides of the fence. In that case I will be voting against the incumbent. Fuck the current administration; it’s done virtually nothing to make me want to support it.