View Full Version : Presdential Election Fear and Loathing
HappyHiker
10-26-12, 7:32pm
Having reached--and overreached--my saturation point of political messages, and having voted yesterday, I am in overload mode. How lovely it would be, in 2016, to somehow retreat from this madness and be elsewhere, off-shore, during the next election. (voting absentee, of course).
Anyone else heartily sick of the whole process? The direct mail pieces? The robo calls? The TV commercials? The soundbytes of the debates? The pundits? The polls? And so much more...
Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad to live in a democracy where we have a vote, but oh my gosh, I've had it up to HERE.
Let it be done...
And you?
How are you bearing up? Why does it have to be so odious?
It is absolutely heaven to be living overseas during this time!! I highly recommend it :)
The direct mail gets immediately pitched. I'm TV free, so at least I don't have to watch those ads. I will be glad to see (hear!) the end of the ads on the two local AM news/talk stations I listen to. Otherwise, I find it interesting...
I live in VA with no TV so I actually don't see the ads. I do get some kind of direct mail every single day, though. But I just toss it in the recycle bin.
I am a political junkie so I can't watch enough of it--can't even stay away if my guy isn't doing well.
But I do want it over, now. I'm done. But I'm still watching...
ApatheticNoMore
10-26-12, 8:05pm
It is absolutely heaven to be living overseas during this time!! I highly recommend it :)
Yea, I think about it, how lucky those are who don't live here, how light it must be. I really don't want to deal with or worry about U.S. politics anymore, not worry about whether my government has a "disposition matrix" and what that might mean, or wants to start a war with Iran, or is approving more GMOS for the homeland gueina pigs,or wants to gut social security (though I'd probalby just save even more), or any of it. I hate U.S. politics.
Anyone else heartily sick of the whole process?
deeply
The direct mail pieces? The robo calls? The TV commercials?
quite honestly noone has my number, I just reregistered in a new address, and yea you know the story: "I don't own a t.v.", I actually don't. I have heard a few radio commercials, mostly they are about that union contribution iniative.
The soundbytes of the debates? The pundits? The polls? And so much more...
True all that, and the increasing hostility of anyone one tries to discuss politics with these days, as everyone is just fighting for turf like their life depended on it. You can't even basically say "complete ditto" without being deemed a suspected enemy and sprung on.
Let it be done...
Yea, really.
I just pretty much ignore the whole thing as best I can.
I just pretty much ignore the whole thing as best I can.
I avoid, then ignore, as much as I can.
My boss just came back from a business trip to Europe and he said the presidential election was all over the news in every country he visited. There was no escape, even there!
SteveinMN
10-26-12, 9:42pm
Yeah, I've had my fill of this election. All of the selective memory, the loaded language, the firm belief that saying something often enough makes it true. There's kind of a weird black humor that makes up for some of the idiocy, and we entertain that here a lot. But, yeah, I'm ready for it to be over.
Elections could be less odious. Well, maybe they could have before Citizens United turned this country into an official plutocracy. Not like America could possibly learn anything from another country, but in other nations they limit how long campaigns can run and some of them even limit the funding. At this point, however, money and influence are so much of the election process here that any effort to clean it up is doomed by Citizens funding fear campaigns for low-information voters.
iris lily
10-26-12, 9:47pm
I will say that we are receiving fewer calls than we did last summer for the primary election. That was odious--we had many hotly contested local races and if you were a register voter you got called and mailed to X times weekly and if you had a record of voting often you called/mailed 2X.
I got email today from Mitt, so I'd probably better mail off a check.
I will not be mailing that p*rick Akin a check although he will likely get my vote. He's a complete moron but in the end, he will caucus with the right side..
Yossarian
10-26-12, 10:01pm
Move to a safe state. I rarely see adds in GA, but while in FL this week pretty much EVERY commercial was political. It's enough to make you miss Billy Mays.
We're certainly getting our fill of it in Ohio. Daily phone calls, mailings, emails and candidates spending so much time in the area that they are eligible for resident status.
gimmethesimplelife
10-26-12, 11:56pm
Gotta say here in Arizona it is not that bad this year. This is a red state - except for Tucson, and Santa Cruz County (just north of the Mexican border and South of Tucson) and also Cochise County - where Douglas and Bisbee are - tend to be very much blue. But we are in the leans Ronmey column and therefore are not getting a lot of candidate attention if any. Cool! The governor here hates Obama anyway lol. Other than some emails from the Obama campaign and some RoboCalls from Romney - which I find kind of offensive because it's like hello, what is this assumption that we are Republican under this roof about? - I have not had to deal with the nastiness I hear folks in batttlegroud states are dealing with. And certainly no political ads on TV for Obama or Ronmey - but yeah, lots of negative local ads. No Obama or Romney ads to date though that I have seen. Rob
its been hell here, being unaffiliated and in a battleground state. only lots of mail and tv, they dont seem to have our cell numbers.
As I mentioned in another thread, I got about 7 political robo calls yesterday. I'm so sick of it. And what makes me the maddest, is how much money is spent on the campaigning. I'll bet 99.9% of the people who go to the campaign rallies, already know who they're voting for. They just want to see their candidate in person. It doesn't serve any purpose. What am absolute waste of money..........but I guess that's what the U.S. is famous for. :(
I can't even imagine what it must be like in Ohio right now Alan. Here in Nebraska it is a hotly contested Senate race that is causing most of the pain. I think each side did exactly two different TV spots and 3 of the 4 are very negative. Every commercial break during the evening news gives us a chance to see all 4, usually in the same order. It's lovely. Wednesday promises to be a very calm day. I'm ready.
The Storyteller
11-5-12, 8:47am
I DVR what little TV I do watch and steadfastly avoid watching commercials (not that we would have that many in deep deep red and decided Oklahoma... even the more local races are locks for the GOP). I also don't watch the news any more, as you can pick up a lot of it through osmosis. I sometimes catch a bit between weather reports on the local news in the morning, about the only news that appeals to me in general. And I prefer to live my politics than watch it happening elsewhere.
That said, I started tuning in to this election about a month or so ago, so I'm not anywhere near saturated. I'm having quite the grand time as it looks like my guy is going to win.
Sh*t happens Storyteller..........don't count your chickens before they hatch (so to speak!) ;)
Its VERY close.
goldensmom
11-5-12, 9:07am
Most everyone I know is over-the-top sick of anything campaign related from the national to local lever, offices and proposals. I turned the TV off Friday, have not checked the mail and will not check it until the day after the election, we do not have a land line telephone so have received no election related calls. My proposal is to limit any election campaign materials, commercials, etc. to the 2 months prior to election day. Oh, if only that could that be a constitutional amendment with penalties for non-compliance. I can only wish.
One thing I've noticed and it may be because I live in a solidly blue state, there is little presidential hoop-la but local and proposal media is rampant.
I've pretty much tuned out the TV and only watch a little news and also PBS. Since Colorado is a swing state, the ads are very frequent. It is almost OK with me as I like them better than Christmas ads. I get maybe one robo call a day. It seems like one of the candidates has been somewhere in the state every few days. Public radio says the combined costs of the presidential campaigns is 6 billion.
One controversial issue on our ballot is the legalization of marijuana. The latest poll I saw gave it a good chance to pass. Surprisingly, I've not noticed many ads yes or no on that one.
I want the Canadian approach: an election is called and BAM! Six weeks to make your case. Done.
^^^^ THIS.
For all the sniping and complaining about how taxes are killing the economy and damaging the country, they can come up with six billion to elect a couple of millionaires to office? If only this power were directed for good....
^^^^ THIS.
For all the sniping and complaining about how taxes are killing the economy and damaging the country, they can come up with six billion to elect a couple of millionaires to office? If only this power were directed for good....
I'm sure it's not as much spending as it is investing...
The Storyteller
11-5-12, 2:13pm
Sh*t happens Storyteller..........don't count your chickens before they hatch (so to speak!) ;)
Its VERY close.
Not really.
But thanks for the chicken think. That always makes me smile.
Storyteller........you'll appreciate this........as I was coming out of the coop this morning, and scraping off the poop from the bottom of my shoes, I thought of this T-shirt saying or bumper sticker "You walk taller with chicken poop on your shoes." :D
THAT would be MY campaign slogan! :laff:
rosarugosa
11-5-12, 2:59pm
I virtually never watch TV, so I've been blissfully unaware of those negative TV ads until the past week or so. But then we did watch a lot of storm coverage during the hurricane, so I hit my saturation point in just a day! These last few days we had some medical appointments and I was a captive audience in TV filled waiting rooms for a few hours (and there were other people there watching, so I couldn't just turn the TVs off as I've been known to do when alone in a waiting room). They just keep showing the same ads over & over. How can they imagine that this wouldn't annoy people? I don't mind the mailings so much because I can just toss them and the robo-calls can be easily deleted. Fortunately, we're done with appointments for now and there are no ads in any of the books I'm reading! :)
The Storyteller
11-5-12, 3:53pm
Storyteller........you'll appreciate this........as I was coming out of the coop this morning, and scraping off the poop from the bottom of my shoes, I thought of this T-shirt saying or bumper sticker "You walk taller with chicken poop on your shoes." :D
THAT would be MY campaign slogan! :laff:
Or an attack add.
With several hundred turkeys and chickens now, I must be getting quite tall.
They just keep showing the same ads over & over. How can they imagine that this wouldn't annoy people?
I think they are calculating (correctly) that at least half of American voters have the attention span of a gnat.
Besides, if you tell a lie often enough, it sometimes gets promoted to "truth" (or "truthiness").
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