Here we are. The final 4 days before the midterm election. The issues in this campaign are obvious to every American who has glanced at the news over the past two years. Iraq. Katrina. Education. Wages and the cost of living. Corruption.
The Republicans, of course, have a whole lot of success to point to since they've held complete control in Washington for the past two years. That's why they just can't stop talking about everything that's happened since 2004. Why go negative when there's so many success stories. Let's run down the list of great accomplishments that the Republicans have given America, shall we?
- The Iraq War. Republican idea, Republican strategy, and Republican vict-wait, never mind.
- Katrina. Republican FEMA administration really got the job... Oh, right. Well, everyone's allowed one mistake, right?
- Education. Thankfully, the Republicans made it much harder for middle class families to send their students to college by raising the interest rates for student loans and making less money available for federally funded scholarships. After all, we need to send fewer children to college to stop the overcrowding - there's not enough money in the California budget for college. Just ask Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - he said last year that fees at the University of California are "too low." Thanks to the big Republican budget crisis, we need to stop our children from going to college.
- Wages, jobs, and the cost of living. I don't know about you, but if I was making more than $500,000 a year, I'd be doing great thanks to those Republican tax cuts. And, thanks to the bankruptcy reform act, there's no need for me to worry about Citibank going out of business. Good thing - that was high on my priority list.
- Corruption. I know that Democrats are just as bad as Republicans - or at least I think they're just as bad, but there sure have been a lot of Republican corruption scandals recently. Republican "Duke" Cunningham. His successor Brian Bilbray, too, it seems. Jack Abramoff. Bob Ney. Tom DeLay. And I can't recall the last time a Democrat was involved in a corruption problem. Guess maybe the Republicans are just more popular? Anyway, way to go, guys.
So, clearly, the Republicans can run this year on their accomplishments.
Or, they could choose to pretend that the last two years never happened and just throw as much mud at their opponents as they possibly can. The Republicans could go ahead and turn their negative attack machine up to full blast.
Which did they go with?
Yep. Looks like they went with the negative slime strategy, a strategy the Republicans have absolutely perfected.
The Republican Party's Congressional wing (the NRCC) spent 90% of its advertising budget on negative attack ads.
And then there's the whole new Swift Boat campaign on John Kerry. I don't even want to talk about this, because it's so plainly obvious that the Republicans just want us to talk about John Kerry (as though he's the one responsible for the failures in Iraq) instead of the Republican track record. So, Kerry forgot the pronoun "us" in a poor joke and suddenly every single Republican from Ken Blackwell all the way up to George W. Bush is talking about it. I'll let Jon Stewart take you though the utter nonsense of this "scandal."
I bet most Americans will react like I have to this negative attack ad BS. I'm even angrier at Bush, Arnold and the Republicans for getting us stuck in Iraq. And for their failures on Katrina and in education. And for the million other things that they did not do in the 6 years that they've had complete control in Washington.
I don't care if this is a negative attack blog post. I'm flipping mad, but at least I'm mad at the Republicans for their actions (and lack of actions) on the issues. Like most Americans, there's no way I'm voting for a Republican this year.