The Longest Season: TNG

The newest iteration of political attack ads is in full swing. These are the response spots, answering, or at least attempting to answer, the arguments put forward by the first round of advertisements. Thus we now have both candidates, and their surrogate PACs, complaining that the other side has misrepresented them (true), taken quotes and positions out of context (also true) and warning people not to believe anything the other guy says (pot, meet kettle).

We're now starting to see hints of the third generation arriving wherein the candidates deny the accusations and accuse the other of whining about otherwise fair attacks. Slowly being buried under layers of charge and counter charge are the original points of contention, whether valid or not. Eventually the ads will become incomprehensible to anyone who has not been following along from the beginning.

There is a smattering of spots for local politicians showing up, mostly US House and Senate races. These tend to be more "Hi, I'm So-'n'-so and I'm running for X. See my pretty family? I live and work around here and promise to not be like the last guy you elected." Mostly, this is because all the candidates are from the same party, vying in the upcoming Republican primary for the right to take on the sacrificial Democrat; even so a couple are slightly edgier. One states that the office being sought is "elected not inherited" a sly reference to the fact the opponent is the "IV" of that name whose recent ancestor (the II or III, I'm not sure which) also held that seat. Of course, the candidate making that insinuation happens to be the son of a former congressman and CIA director who just started adding daddy's name to his own in his campaign, but, hey, if you're not willing to vote for a hypocrite you'll never vote at all.

The good news is: political ads have not yet completely overtaken the airwaves.

The bad news is: because of the good news, the loud-mouth local car salesman and talking animal insurance mascots are still around.