Friday, October 27, 2006

Down and dirty

With the Tennessee mudslide leading the charge in election advertising, I thought Grub Street should air an attack ad. Just keeping up with the pack.

Attack ads have been on our mind over at GP Background Stories, where we've cobbled together a fascinating collection: Down and dirty: Attack Ads

I've always been wary of negative ads. Besides promoting the opposition they also have a tendency to misfire - and that seems to be happening with the Harold Ford attacks.

The other odd thing about the current rash of sleaze and dirt ads is the timing. Why are they attacking and leaving ample time for the nonsense to be revealed for what it is?

Call me biased, but I think the ad that shot down Canada in the cross fire was best of all. Tag line: ''Let Canada take care of North Korea. They're not busy.''

Nothing like taking the sleaze International.

3 comments:

Cartledge said...

kvatch, here are some. The last one because I met a bunch of people from North Dakota recently. They kept insisting they were more Canadian than American. Sorry about the messy html, it is Friday :(

Republican Attack Ad Offends Canada NYT
href="http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=a0a482ad-3522-494b-ab12-a165c3aec1ff&k=15686">Canada's reputation suffers
collateral damage in heated US mid ... canada.com
href="http://www.kxmb.com/getARticle.asp?ArticleId=58949">Canada
Upset At GOP Ad Targeting Harold Ford Jr. Reiten
Television KXMB Bismarck, North Dakota 

misneach said...

I hate that the media refuses to ask the simple question of "Since the Iraqis obviously don't want us in Iraq, and our people don't want us in Iraq, why are we still there?" Perhaps because it could bring about the obvious answer "because we have to stay to protect our stolen oil."

I hate that attack ads have become as synonomous with elections as, well, casting your vote. Must we constantly stoop to the lowest possible level just to win? I was brought up to believe that we don't, but then again I wasn't the son of a senator or president.

Cartledge said...

Min, I have always avoided negative campaigning - for a range of reasons. But then my recoed shows more losing competitions than winning ones.
I guess it depends on what is really important, and I stuck with the high ground.I can't honestly tell myself the world is a better place for it.