Image Credit: Sue Myrick (R-NC) for Congress November 2006.
Our Picks for the Best Political Ad of the Year and the Worst Ad of the Year
BBSNews Politics 2006-11-06 -- This mid-term election cycle has seen more animosity and money spent to throw it than probably ever seen in modern times, we have picked two ads as best and worst that are not the most obvious choices. The Michael J. Fox ad of course will get a lot of play after tomorrows election in the wrap-ups; especially as Democrat Claire McCaskill in the 'show me' state of Missouri might edge out GOP Senator Jim Talent.
The ad in Tennessee against Rep. Harold Ford Jr. a Democrat running for senate in Tennessee will probably even get more play because Republican challenger Bob Corker may very well win; and many will wonder if that happened because of his racist ad.
No doubt everyone who cares has seen them and they will not be our focus. We were looking to find two campaign ads that summed up both voter attitudes and the pitch of the national candidate field as a whole both Republican and Democrat.
The Worst Ad of the 2006 Election Season
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Screen grab of North Carolina Republican Representative Sue Myrick from a 2006 mid-term election TV ad.
Image Credit: Sue Myrick (R-NC) for Congress November 2006. |
The worst TV ad in our estimation that has been circulating is by Republican Sue Myrick, Representative from North Carolina. She has a relatively safe seat during this election, maybe she will be in office after tomorrow, but her ad epitomizes the GOP led fear campaign without mentioning Iraq or the dreaded gay agenda (that by now our readers know does not exist, there is no gay agenda). Here is a transcript of the ad:
Myrick: "I'm Sue Myrick. I approve this message.Myrick: I hear you loud and clear. You say secure the border, insure national security; personal security, and economic security. You get my vote everytime.
Myrick: Folks these are not normal times. Iran, North Korea, Islamic jihadist's, border infiltration, all threaten our security.
Myrick: We the people must unite to protect our security then America will be invincible."
The most glaring reason Myrick gets worst ad is because of the misrepresentation that if somehow America acquiesces to every Republican whim, from wire-tapping without warrant to a border wall that makes us more like Israel and certainly will never get built or work, the US would somehow be "invincible." This is utter claptrap. Perhaps Myrick can be forgiven since it is election season but it is simply a bold faced lie to ever claim that the United States could be invincible no matter what strategy is employed. When there is no leadership, as evidenced during Hurricane Katrina, it is patently obvious just how vulnerable we are when facts and reality take a back-seat to partisanship and ideology as we have seen during the current administration.
The surest way towards solving the Middle East crisis is getting Israel to honor it's obligations under all previous UN Resolutions. The US must stop picking and choosing which ones it wants to enforce unilaterally and start thinking globally. There was an immigration bill that was fair and realistic and it was tossed out for a get tough scheme that can never work either realistically or politically and we are already seeing the result of that mis-guided effort to truly alienate Hispanics and South America in general. Daniel Ortega just came back into power in Nicaragua. Russia and China support Iran. It behooves US policy makers to realize this fact and act in a diplomatic way as opposed to a saber rattling way. And North Korea tested a nuclear device precisely because the Bush administration considered continuity between administrations a "quaint" idea much like the Geneva Conventions on torture. The current administration "went wide" after September 11th, 2001 and decided to go after the dream of taking Iraq instead of taking care of the serious business of getting Bin Laden and fixing the root causes of terrorism, the occupation of Palestine and parts of Lebanon and Syria by Israel and now Iraq by the United States.
The Best Ad of the 2006 Election Season
The TV ad we have selected for best of the season represents the wave of voter insurgency that has decided this election cycle is a referendum on the Bush administration. A national ad that conveys the deep seated problem that Americans have with the current political leadership. This ad is from a group that bills itself as the September Fund. It plays on the nickname "shrub" that has plagued President Bush for years in the progressive blogosphere. We've had six years of examples of the current leadership and "stay the course," and "Brownie you're doing a heckuva job" and that same stubborness about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has been faulted by the enlisted ranks all the way to the brass and now by the publisher of the Army Times and all the associated service publications who are calling for his ouster.
The ad starts out with people addressing a bush. That's right. A shrub. A part of your local landscaping. An inanimate plant incapable of providing answers on it's own. A piece of shrubbery that would need a speech writer to provide the words needed to satisfy GOP focus groups to retain their stranglehold on US policy. The ad starts out with regular people simply addressing a bush:
Regular Americans: "So what's our exit strategy from Iraq?Regular Americans: Why do our soldiers have to keep dying?
Regular Americans: What about affordable healthcare?
Regular Americans: Can't we support stem cell research?
Regular Americans: Why did we let down Katrina victims?
Regular Americans: Why won't congress do anything?
Regular Americans: Pass a decent minimum wage?
Regular Americans: Why are we losing so many jobs to overseas?
Announcer: Okay, it's kinda ridiculous to think you are ever going to get an answer from this -- bush. but it's also kinda ridiculous to think you are going to get one from this one."
(Cue the photograph of current President Bush. The subject of the play on words.)
The ad says it all. Americans see not a wall of security but instead a wall of denial.
From the chief executive right on down the chain of "command" goes the denial. The Republican vaunted "stay on message." Everything is okay. Be vigilant, watch out for the dreaded terrorists, but go to Wal-Mart and spend your cash. Buy a car, no preference on who from, just spend some cash, go on a vacation, we will get attacked again at any moment in any place, fear, Fear, FEAR, we will take care of you. Then we all saw Hurricane Katrina and realized just how vulnerable we are under an administration that is blind to all except for what they can gain for the Republican party to retain power. The Bush White House denies ties with Abramoff and DeLay; good luck. The Bush Administration laments that all the other countries thought Saddam Hussein had WMD, and only we had the guts to go in on that neocon hunch while ignoring our own intelligence experts; and America went on to destroy the country, install a Islamic theocracy (don't blame us, read the new Iraqi constitution), kill more than 600,000 Iraqi's (Hold the letters, the methodology used in the second John's Hopkins study on the issue is sound).
All the issues in the ad we chose as the best of the year are important to ordinary Americans and the current sitting crop of politicians, sadly for the Republicans, this means them for the most part, they will bear the brunt of voter anger against a government that does not directly and factually address what Americans see on TV news every evening and read in their morning papers and on the Internet.
Since they are ignoring such civic notions as ethics, fairness, the rule of law, honesty, reality, facts on the ground, casualty counts on both sides, and even global warming, it was simpy time for a massive change. Here's hoping the Democrats know what to do with the power they find themselves holding on Wednesday morning.
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