A Tale of Two Mailers

It's political season around these parts (probably around your area as well, but being within sneezing distance of DC seems to heat up that season a bit more than anywhere else I remember living). This means innumerable phone calls at all hours of the night from unknown callers (note to politicians: we don't answer these calls. We also don't answer calls that tell us you're political. Nor do we answer calls from phone numbers we don't recognize. So really...you could just stop calling). It also means a mailbox that is 82% political ads.

Saturday was a red letter day for said ads, with the grand total hitting 7 political mailers. Two of them caught my eye particularly.

The first is the more common breed, shown front and back below (I believe you can click to embiggerate them).

The general gist is that Chuck Colgan is running and he's a Democrat and wants to raise taxes and, therefore, we should not vote for him. But who should we vote for? Obviously the person who sent the flyer, yes? Except that nowhere does it actually say who that is, unless you use your super dooper magnification eyes and notice on the front (the top photo), just by the address (Oh, look, a squirrel!) - paid for by Tom Gordy. Apparently, then, Tom Gordy is running against Chuck Colgan and doesn't want you to vote for Colgan. He doesn't seem overly concerned with you actually voting for him, however. Because this tells me nothing about Mr. Gordy - aside from the fact that he has decided to abandon the principle we all pretty much learned at the knees of our assorted mothers: "If you don't have anything nice to say..."

Of the 7 flyers we received, 6 were of the above ilk. Only one was of the sort that will actually positively influence my voting decisions.

The front has the usual doomsaying portent of how terrible life is. (Which is not to say that things aren't hard, but both sides of the aisle are really drumming up the doom this year.) And in times like these, we need leaders. And Cleveland Anderson is that leader, the back side tells me. And then it goes on to *gasp* tell me about Mr. Anderson. Hey, novel thought! If you want me to vote for you, tell me why I should do that!

Honestly, I am so tired of the negative campaigns - but the Gordy one just made me laugh - have we gotten so absorbed in saying nasty things about our competition that we can't be bothered to remind voters why we're a better alternative? (Or heck, who we are so the voter can go and Google you to see if you're a better alternative? I don't mind doing a little leg work to figure out who to vote for, but really...I've gotta at least know your name.)

On the other hand, if I sent out something nasty about another person to every household in the county, I probably would be embarrassed to put my name on it too.