Politics

R made a comment about campaign mailers, that she used 'negative advertising' to break a tie between two candidates. I had that in mind yesterday.

For the last few years, our state has faced furloughs of public employees. The mailer we got said that most state politicians also accepted furloughs ... but not "Candidate X," who was only interested in himself, so don't vote for "Candidate X." The mailer was paid for by "Candidate Y's" party. So I emailed "Candidate X's" campaign to ask for the true story behind this. Here is part of the email we got back from them:

"It is good of you to ask. They [Candidate Y' party] could have sent this out before now so we could respond. They obviously did not want us to have time to.

The legislators were asked voluntarily to either give back a few days in pay to the government to help people in need, or, they could pay it directly to a charity. The amount was to be equal to the number of days state workers were furloughed. There was never any mention which one was better to do. Candidate X gave directly to those in need for years 1 and 3. He took the cut in pay the second year. Seeing and giving to people in need seemed more direct because the government is a more indirect route and less gets to the needy. If Candidate X is guilty of anything it is that he did not know he was being set up....Give him a call on his cell 444-444-4444. He'll speak with you any time."

That makes the campaign flyer pretty negative, I think, by any standard. Implying that the Candidate X kept the money, when in fact he gave it, every year. In fact, I probably would have given it to charity as well rather than give it back to the government. Big points in his favor. Then I looked more closely at the email. Come again? This isn't the office number, they gave me the candidate's personal cell phone number if I had questions? Now THAT's responsive! And BTW, yes we voted for him, and yes he won his race.