I really hate this political advertisement.

[rax]

If you're not interested in the politics of the current Massachusetts special election for Senate, and in particular interested in my complaining about the problems with a particular Coakley ad, you can safely skip this one.

So, there's this special election happening this coming Tuesday in MA, with three candidates running:

• Martha Coakley, current state Attorney General, Democrat;
• Scott Brown, current state senator, Republican;
• Joe Kennedy, no current office, Independent/Libertarian/self-advertised "Tea Party Candidate."

Until recently, everyone (including me) assumed Coakley was just going to walk away with it; I wasn't thrilled with this, as I preferred Mike Capuano in the primaries, but even though I'm not terribly fond of her she is likely to vote the way I would want her to vote on most things. Lately Brown has been picking up a lot of steam, and Coakley has started having to actually campaign; as far as I can tell, she's doing an abominable job of it. Witness this flier:



So, this is pretty bad. First of all, this entire side of the flyer --- and this is an 8.5 by 11 flyer --- says nothing positive at all. It's a picture of a sick-looking plant, and a badly photoshopped montage of Republicans. It doesn't even tell me anything specific about Scott Brown, other than that he apparently "is BUSH." Now, there are plenty of legitimate things to criticize about Scott Brown, but I don't vote against candidates because they are poorly photoshopped, it usually takes more than that. Hopefully, I thought, the back would actually explain to me what attributes Scott Brown has that I won't like other than "we put him next to George Bush using technology." Maybe, heavens forfend, it would even tell me something positive about Martha Coakley instead. Here's what we get:



Aside from "Coakley's staff got some fonts for Christmas that they really wanted to try out," this tells us that Coakley's campaign, based on some citations (at least there are citations!), believes that Scott Brown and George W. Bush have the same position on three issues. I'm realy pissed, because for the first two, I'm not entirely sure what they even mean:

• "Repeal taxbreaks for companies that ship U.S. jobs overseas." What exactly constitutes a U.S. job? What tax breaks are these? Is this a particular piece of legislation? There are so many things that this could mean, some of which I'm probably in favor of, and some of which I'm probably not. I can't say, without knowing, and the source for this is the UMass Republican Club Newsletter of Fall 2008. [0] Great! There's a source I can easily check! In fact, it turns out that the newsletter of Fall/Winter 2008 is actually the most recent one they've done, and you can download it in PDF format by clicking this link I just put here for you. Here's the paragraph I think they're basing this assertion on:

"The State Senator also blasted the Patrick administration's plan to tax earnings that corporations with
offices in Massachusetts make outside the United States. This so called “closing corporate loopholes,”
he said, would make Massachusetts a far less viable place to do business and would likely result in
many businesses with offices in Massachusetts relocating to other states or to foreign countries.
Brown gave the example of Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Corporation, which has a bottling plant in
Needham: under the Patrick administration's plan, Coca-Cola would be required to pay a
Massachusetts tax on its international earnings simply because they have an office in Massachusetts.
This issue has been especially pressing for Senator Brown because the Needham Coca-Cola bottling
plant is one of the largest employers in his senatorial district and has begun to consider moving over
the border to Rhode Island to avoid this superfluous new tax while still remaining close enough to
Boston to not damage its distribution business. "

If you read through this publication, it's, uh, not the sort of thing I'd really want to cite to make a convincing political argument. It's a newsletter for a bunch of conservative college students, two whole pages of which are taken up with "GOD BLESS AMERICA" iconography. I find it more interesting that Scott Brown personally donates to their school Republican club than that they printed something about his opinions. The other thing that they cite here is a roll call vote on H. 4904, which does appear to actually change the way that Massachusetts calculates combined reporting when there's a Massachusetts company doing business in multiple locations or with a partner company in another state or country? Or something? This is totally beyond my legalese and financial skills, but here's a late draft version of the bill if you want to take a look. It's unclear to me that the statement the Coakley campaign here makes is actually justified.

• "Crackdown on Wall Street abuses that led to financial meltdown." OK, how? I am skeptical that Scott Brown --- or even George W. Bush, as popular it is to just assume he's wrong about everything [1] --- actually desires to change nothing about the financial system. Most likely, what's different here is how they would like to approach it. They cite a radio show interview, which I was able to find a transcript of. Here's what he says: "Pulling back on the financial [regulations], I think if you do too much too soon, it doesn’t have a chance to catch up and see if we can work out of this ourselves through free enterprise, through private enterprise, intervention and creativity. So I’m all in favor of just holding back for a little bit and letting private enterprise try to get us out of this mess." Now, I don't necessarily agree with this, but one of the things he listed there was "intervention." Coakley doesn't tell me, with this flyer, what she means by a crackdown. She just says, in a larger and bolder and slightly narrower font, "YES." Her issues page on the topic is a little more specific, but it still doesn't say what policies she supports: "She will work with the business and financial communities as well as other stakeholders to develop and implement tough but fair regulatory reforms to prevent another economic failure and to give the government the necessary tools to protect investors, consumers, and the market in the future." OK, sure.

• "Extend huge tax breaks to richest 1%." This one bothers me less, although I'm still curious what constitutes a "huge" tax break and I wish there were more detail --- and mostly it bothers me less because I remember reading a bunch of articles on different tax policies a year or two ago, not because it's actually all that much more specific. It's another emotional appeal, it's just that "tax the fuck out of the rich" is an emotional appeal that works pretty well on me. The citation is "AP 12/10/09, Boston Globe 12/16/09, Boston Globe 12/30/09" which doesn't tell me where to find the articles, and that's also annoying. It's pretty likely there are specific things that Scott Brown said here that I would disagree with strongly, but all I get is "Supports," nothing really differentiating.

Lest you think I've started supporting Scott Brown, there are plenty of things he's actually said to disagree with and to make me vote for Coakley instead. [2] Here are some things from his issues page:

• "America is a great country but we also have some challenges that we need to solve if we're going to remain the world's superpower." Oh my god no. I do not want a senator who thinks of us as "the world's superpower." I'm very philosophically opposed to this. I mean, fat lot of good that does anyone, but I am.
• "I am a free enterprise advocate who believes that lower taxes can encourage economic growth. Raising taxes stifles growth, weakens the economy and puts more people out of work." Yeah, because that worked so well. As far as I can tell, the actual answer to the question of "Do lower taxes encourage economic growth or do higher taxes encourage economic growth?" is "Oh my god it's not a binary it's an incredibly complicated system please stop turning everything into sound bites you are making the universe more stupid." Coakley has a bunch of text on the economy, and while honestly I'm not versed enough to judge whether or not she's correct about everything, there's some concrete stuff in there like foreclosure relief and keeping track of empty houses that's much more compelling to me than "lower taxes."
• "I oppose a national cap and trade program because of the higher costs that families and businesses would incur." I disagree with this, but he's actually way better on the environment than I would have expected.
• "I believe there are some crimes that are so heinous that they deserve capital punishment. Our Government should have the ability to impose the death penalty in cases where it is justified." I disagree, and so does Coakley. (Whose stance on other crime-related matters I don't like, but I don't expect Brown to be better from what I've read.)
• "I believe government has the responsibility to regulate in this area and I support parental consent and notification requirements and I oppose partial birth abortion. I also believe there are people of good will on both sides of the issue and we ought to work together to support and promote adoption as an alternative to abortion." Disagree strongly with the first sentence, it's nice to see the second one in a Republican campaign, nice to see is different from "would vote for." (Of course, there's no guarantee he wouldn't go and pull a Mitt Romney on us.)
• "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. States should be free to make their own laws in this area, so long as they reflect the people's will as expressed through them directly, or as expressed through their elected representatives." I'd love to see this sort of statement compared to every judicial decision that might not have passed a popular vote at the time. "So you're saying that Brown v. Board of Education was wrong?"

I wish Coakley's flier had addressed these issues using his actual words, delineating real differences between them, rather than the dreck her campaign sent out instead. I hope that anyone in Massachusetts who read this far found this useful in terms of deciding to go and vote on Tuesday --- and of course I encourage you to vote for Coakley despite the problems with her campaign, but it's your ballot. In general, this election makes me wonder "Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?"

[0] I go to UMass. I'm surprised there are enough Republicans to form a club, let alone have a newsletter. ... oh wait it's in Amherst. Still! Wow.

[1] Only, you know, 90% of things.

[2] I guess I could vote for Kennedy --- he's actually pro-gay marriage, which surprised me --- but he also wants to end the Federal Department of Education and thinks the free market is the solution to practically everything. That said, I expected to prefer Brown to him given that he identifies as the Tea Party candidate, and surprisingly, after reading his issues statements, I don't. I still prefer Coakley, though.

EDIT: I'm told that the images render in Firefox on the Mac but not in Safari or Chrome. If anyone has any idea what's up there, I'm curious, but I don't have time to debug it right now, I spent too much time writing this already.

Comments

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

If you think that's bad, you should see the TV spots. I got an eyeful at the bar last night, and they made me hate whoever was in them, whoever was running them, and Philo Farnsworth for inventing TV.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

I got one of these too. I don't know if it's _tactically_ bad, fear and hatred seem to poll well in this country's political discourse, but I have to agree that it doesn't raise the tone of that discourse. What is even more annoying is that probably I _paid_ for some of these things. MoveOn pleaded with me for some cash to help Coakley not lose the election. I kicked them some bucks because I didn't like Coakley but liked Brown less. Now I feel kind of soiled, the way I do when I buy environmentally irresponsible consumer products. Only some of those products are arguably necessities, and political contributions probably aren't.

[eggshellhammer.livejournal.com]

Political contributions are arguably necessities, but if they're going to fuck it up this badly, I'm regretting passing them the cash.

[zdenka]

Yeah, my housemate got that flyer yesterday, and I thought it was ridiculous.

As far as I'm concerned, almost anything that shakes up the one-party system in this state would be a good thing, but I don't expect us to agree on this election. :-)

[sethg]

Oh, I think that if the Democrats got serious competition from, say, the Green Party, it would have a salutary effect. :-)

[zdenka]

It probably would, in that it would encourage the MA Democrats to be more responsible and less entitled, which I would approve of. I think that complete dominance by any one party is a bad thing for the voters.

I'm not sure it would lead to a rise in candidates that I personally want to vote for. :-)

[davidglasser.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, last I checked, the Massachusetts Green/Rainbow Party were a bunch of anti-Semitic scum who spend their time publicly promoting violent terrorism (Hezbollah, etc), heckling survivors of genocide in Darfur, and basically choosing any cause that has any Jewish supporters and opposing it without any other sort of internal consistency. (David Rolde is the main name to look for here; last I checked he was the party secretary or something.)

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

...heckling survivors in Darfur?

How? Why? What? Why?

[davidglasser.livejournal.com]

Er, I think I meant heckling survivors *from* Darfur. Search for David Rolde Darfur to find various reports (from sources of various levels of trustability).

[rax.livejournal.com]

I'm actually in favor of shaking up the one-party system at the state level --- if someone else would field a candidate I actually agreed with on anything, I'd vote for them. :) At the national level, given the Republican party platform these days, I don't expect to vote for a Republican national office candidate again for a very, very long time.

[zdenka]

Noted.

My opinion of national politics is even more cynical than my opinion of state politics.

[eredien]

I'm actually in favor of shaking up the one-party system at the state level --- if someone else would field a candidate I actually agreed with on anything, I'd vote for them. :)

Yes, this. I actually agreed with Brown on some (though not a majority) of his environmental/transportation policies and thought some of them were actually more concrete than Coakley's, which were the usual MA "I'll say something about the Green Line Extension here" talking points.

I am worried about what Brown's past record on wanting to allow religious exemptions to allow hospital staff to excuse themselves from providing emergency contraception for rape victims, and haven't been able to find info on how Brown may have changed his position since on his own site.

I also disagree with him on abortion (except I agree that people should strongly be encouraged to adopt), on gay marriage, and on the death penalty, all on religious grounds.

I wish there were more options all around. I wish someone other than Coakley had won the primary on the Democratic side though.

Also, regarding that flyer: what is the *point* of having that "bush is brown" thing at all? You might argue "contrasts with the phrase 'brown is bush,'" but if the flyer's point is to get the reader to compare brown to bush, you want to make that--just that, since it's a flyer--as clear as possible. The other way around just muddles your point and makes it even less strong. I thought it was a *gardening* flyer when I first saw it sitting on the table: an image of dead plant matter just doesn't scream "well-crafted political campaign staying on message" to me, somehow.

[eredien]

I am also frustrated with the recent "red invades blue" rhetoric of the Brown campaign. I think it's counterproductive. We're all MA citizens, but it makes it sound like they're invading with intent to, I don't know, barracks in my home and steal my chickens.

[eredien]

Wow, the actual banner says "Red Invades Blue: take Massachusetts."
http://www.brownforussenate.com/red-invades-blue

So Brown's going to take Massachusetts--ostensibly to give it to...Massachusetts?

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

Agreed; if the MA Republicans ever ran candidates who weren't strictly less good on all issues (from my viewpoint) than the corresponding Democrats, I might actually be tempted. But the closest they've actually gotten that I recall seeing was a kind of Republican Lite — more moderate than usual, but the same direction. And Brown isn't even that; from what I've seen he's basically a rabid Fox News clone, which is why it's pissing me off that he's getting so much support here *and* that Coakley's campaign is being so utterly useless against him.

[sethg]

Coakley, like most experienced Massachusetts politicians, is a Democratic Party hack, and neither she nor her hack friends have any idea how to run a seriously contested campaign.

Brown, like most Republican politicians, is a loon, but he collected buckets of cash from his fellow loons, and Romney’s people are running his campaign.

This is the ongoing tragedy of Massachusetts politics.

[rax.livejournal.com]

This flyer seriously looks like they gave an intern a copy of Photoshop and told the intern "Make him seem like Bush! Here, have an internet connection."

[eredien]

It's like..."Brown, brown...what else is brown? Ah-ha! I know! Let's pull up that dead plant in the break room! It's the same *color* as this guy's *last name*, get it? Get it? Won't that throw him for a loop?!"

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

I go to UMass Amherst. Holy $&!?, there are college-age Republicans in the Pioneer Valley?!

Anyhow, thanks for this post. I'm trying to become more politically aware, and you've made a clear-cut and entertaining read of the issues at hand. I'm going to vote for Coakley, but that doesn't mean I entirely like doing it.

[weirdquark]

::snerk::

Having grown up there, I had the same thought, but if you ignore the very liberal Amherst and Northampton, western MA is relatively conservative.

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just live in Liberal Bubble World (except for certain crusty and stubborn right-wingers to whom I happen to be related).

[sovay]

If you're not interested in the politics of the current Massachusetts special election for Senate, and in particular interested in my complaining about the problems with a particular Coakley ad, you can safely skip this one.

But your post was so much more useful than any distributed material I've received from either candidate!

[rathdei.livejournal.com]

Just be a political analyst, rachel. Or a politician*.

Also, you have to keep in mind any time that normal people listen to politicians use more than 5 words in a sentence it turns into DUDUDUUUUHAAAAAHH DAAAAHHHHHHH UUUUAAAAAHHHHH DDDDUUUUDDDHHAAAAAA** inside their heads, and they curl up into fetal positions, whispering "god bless america" over and over again inside their heads.

Really, the end result here is that about 5% of the population knows what the fuck is going on, and only about 2% of them vote. the rest of us either don't care or are too stupid.

*actually, maybe not. remember when mom ran for school committee and the other guy basically started a SMEAR CAMPAIGN against her? For SCHOOL COMMITTEE?? There is something seriously wrong about that.

**DERP DERP DERP DERP

"republicrat, democran, one party system"

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

I am extremely fond of this sentence:

a badly photoshopped montage of Republicans

Not to mention "we put him next to George Bush using technology."

Because snerk.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Fragment. Sentence fragment.

Because Devil's Advocate was the only open position in this economy...

[rustycoon.livejournal.com]

...I will go to bat for negative campaign ads.

Disclaimer: This ad is for shit. I'd feel a lot better about defending it if it didn't demonstrate (somehow) LESS PHOTOSHOP SKILL THAN I, MYSELF, HAVE!

Anyway...

Negative campaign ads like this one are, unfortunately, meat and potatoes of campaigning. I'm a little shocked (but not awed) that it's coming out in January. Usually you hold this type of bullshit until June, if not October. Negative ads are VERY powerful, but their effects are shortlived and lose potency after not too long.

I hate to see them as much as the next guy, but the science behind them is sound; People like to hate.

The confusingly-vague issues on the back are part and parcel of the negative ad as well. Sadly, it's become nearly impossible for a candidate to openly admit a position with any specificity. If the issue you reveal has ANY detail that a voter disagrees with, you lose that voter. Because no one is going to ever be happy with 100% of a plan - except maybe the person who wrote it - candidates have to be very careful about playing their cards to their chests... or lose.

The end result is political rhetoric that is increasingly uninformative, campaigns that are little more than vague name-calling matches built on financial muscle rather than intellectual or rhetorical talent, and people who give a damn (which is NOT the majority by far) becoming more and more frustrated with the process until you either give up or become jaded.

These facts should not be laid at the feet of Martha Coakley, however. (Her shitty taste in photoshopping can be, however). I file this one under Churchill's observation: "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

Politicians, in many ways, are munchkin gamers. They do what gets the most plusses, regardless of of the associated minuses. Alienating you is a good move if it un-alienates two other swing votes. (And, as you note, you don't hate her enough to vote against her for this so worst case she's genuinely +1 from this. Best case she's outright +2)

Politicians don't pick the rules of the game, they just play by them. When voters reward politicians for keeping it clean and above the belt? They'll do just that, I promise you. As it stands, candidates can only win on that kind of campaign if the voters let them.

Re: Because Devil's Advocate was the only open position in this economy...

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

I'm a little shocked (but not awed) that it's coming out in January. Usually you hold this type of bullshit until June, if not October. Negative ads are VERY powerful, but their effects are shortlived and lose potency after not too long.

This is for a special election being held next Tuesday, so if the ad's notional half-life is even as much as a week, they've fine on that count.

Re: Because Devil's Advocate was the only open position in this economy...

[rustycoon.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, yeah this is the time to be doing this, then. This is what last-minute politics are like.

Re: Because Devil's Advocate was the only open position in this economy...

[mindways]

And, as you note, you don't hate her enough to vote against her for this...

Obviously, "the people I know" isn't a valid statistical sampling, so I can't really argue against your math. :\

But personally, she's convinced me that if she wins, unless she exceeds my expectations by a mile, I want to support (and possibly volunteer for) someone to try and unseat her three years from now.

There is a special brand of (idiocy, irony, take your pick) in sending out ads comparing Brown to Bush when the style of fearmongering she's using is so damn similar to Bush's.

Re: Because Devil's Advocate was the only open position in this economy...

[rustycoon.livejournal.com]

There is a special brand of (idiocy, irony, take your pick) in sending out ads comparing Brown to Bush when the style of fearmongering she's using is so damn similar to Bush's.

This is a fair criticism. My point was that Bush did it because it is an effective tactic. Bush's problem was overuse. Since this is the first I'm hearing of Coakley doing this, I doubt she'll exhibit the same problem as she is pulling this crap in a time frame where reason-based arguments won't have time to work.

Your instinct to unseat her, however, is commendable and is the primary mechanism by which democratic governments function. I encourage you to rummage around and find someone you like better to support. :)

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

One of those showed up here, too. I didn't look at it too closely or think about it too closely, but I do recall thinking “Really? Is that really the best they can do?” and “Was that choice of font entirely necessary?” and “Well at least they cite their sources?” Sigh.

(FWIW, no problems with the images in Opera on Linux.)

[hari-mirchi.livejournal.com]

Oh God, I saw that shit and just had to sit down and alternately curse Coakley's campaign and/or MA Dems for being complete idiots and laugh at how absurd it was. I can't stand Coakley, but the party machine is behind her, and I'm sure she'll at the very least be a competent Senator. It pisses me off though that she's been so arrogant as to put approximately 0 effort into campaigning until this week. Special elections always favor the candidate with the most batshit beliefs & supporters. It's not like that's a secret or anything that political advisors are unaware of. And yet, she still, sat on her ass until a week before the election, then spewed a bunch of desperation-tinged vomit all over us.

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

I was watching TV last night, and during one commercial break, there were 4 back to back TV spots for one, then the other candidate. Not to mention seeing *the same spot* two or three breaks in a row.

Response to edit

[baxil.livejournal.com]

Using Safari on a Mac and also not seeing your images. I looked into the display problem a bit.

The symptoms EXACTLY match http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1166565/misinterpreted-png-images-in-safari-on-mac - which would be helpful if that page had any solutions besides "resave the file as a different type of image." ;-p When I download the file manually to my Mac, it will show the file preview in the file's icon (and I can see a thumbnail of it in the Get Info window), but even opening it up from my computer, it will not display in Safari nor in the Preview application. It shows up fine in Quicktime Player if I open it from within that app.

It appears to be some sort of incompatibility between the way this particular PNG was saved (since I can see other PNGs fine) and the rendering engine that sumbunall Mac applications use.

Did you find this image somewhere on the Web or did you scan/photograph it yourself? If yourself, what program did you save it in, and does that program give you options for how to save the PNG in the Save As dialog? Something as simple as changing the save options of the file might fix it.

... I also notice, statting the file, that it's apparently saved in 8-bit RGB instead of the more common 24-bit. That might be it.

[bluedaisy.livejournal.com]

Wow. I've been not listening (and, oddly, haven't gotten a single flier) since the primary, since all the candidates I could respect lost there. Thanks for the analysis!

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

I have no comment about the advertisement, but I am surprised at how quickly this race jumped into the spotlight of my news sources... for once, a Republican in Massachusetts actually stands a chance of winning.