This week in politics – A brave new world

Two thoughts have rambled through my head this week as I watched coverage of the presidential campaign. The first is the rise of Free Ad Time. (dontcha love that it spells out FAT!) The media – again in their desperation for something to say – is now in the business of giving each candidate FAT. So far, this has benefited John McCain the most since it is his ads which have been receiving all sorts of scrutiny the last two weeks. In the primaries, Hillary Clinton benefited from the first big round of FAT thanks to her “3am ad”. What happens is that every single major news outlet runs an ad in its entirety and then spends entire segments analyzing it. Often their analysis is mind numbingly vapid, but still, that candidate is ever so thankful I am sure for the FAT considering how expensive actual advertising time is. Many ads are initially just regional buys since the candidate is just targeting a particular state at a time given financial contraints. However, the media ends up exposing the ad to the nation with their FAT segments. Now, the reason it has benefited McCain is because of the tone of his last two ads. The first one accusing Obama of ignoring the troops on his overseas visit ostensibly because cameras were not allowed was first all completely debunked right away since that was *not* the reason he skipped that last visit ni Germany and then was largely panned because the images they showed in the background of the ad were of Obama *visiting troops* in Iraq! It’s since been revealed that the McCain camp was prepared to critize Obama either way – for using the troops as props or for avoiding them. Funny stuff since again, it was McCain who pushed for that overseas trip!! Anyway, forgetting how silly some of the ads are, the really funny thing is how the media gets into them. They essentially reward the campaigns for outlandish ads. Now, the Obama camp has rightly pointed out that so far all McCain has done in his ads is attack Obama rather then promoting McCain and his positions on key issues. However, why should they? A drab ad telling you how McCain supports the gas tax holiday or drilling offshore would not give them anythign to yammer about! Which means no FAT. I also love the standard issue reponses from both campaigns. I know they have flash cards handy with these things. Both camps have the same ones, just depends on which name they need to insert 🙂 For example: “Senator X has again proven he does not understand what is important to the American people.” “Senator Y has again lowered the tone of this campagin by attacking Senator X rather than focusing on the issues” Rinse, repeat.

On a more hopeful note (yep, had to say it!), I’ve seen this mentioned in a few other places, but it really hit home to me as SportsBoy and I watched the tv last night. He is growing up thinking it is perfectly normal for women and minorities to hold positions of power in our country. He is not phased in the least by Obama’s race or his name. On his own he initially was rooting for Hillary to win the nomination. Given that this is the first presidential race that will be in his memory banks, I am so thrilled that it is not again another race between two older white men!! It’s always been my belief that it takes more than one generation to really change things. Equality for women, race relations, sexual orientation acceptance, those are things very very recent for our country. It takes time for those things to sink in. Time as in, generations of efforts. Here’s hoping that his generation is the one that really does get past the race/gender issue and makes even deeper inroads for same sex marriage and acceptance.