In less than two months, voters will be headed to the polls for primary elections for Democrats, Republicans, et al. If you weren't aware of this, or hadn't put much thought into it don't feel bad - most people aren't doing so either.Turnout is likely to be low, because it's a battle of no-names for most races, and the top of the ticket has a presumptive Democratic nominee (minus any actual campaign). So, the drama filters downward.
For some reason, many termed out legislators, a rich dude, and the DA from San Francisco have crowded the field for Attorney General - at last count I saw 6 on the Democratic side alone. Many voters are undecided, since no one candidate is particularly well known outside their hometown/district. Harris is the presumptive "front runner," but most voters are undecided. Ironically, a poll early this year indicated that the top choice for Democratic primary voters was a candidate who wasn't even running for the job. Ouch.
In a crowded race, it's expected that candidates are going to pump themselves up as much as possible, and rip on their opponents to win. So it should have been no surprise when Chris Kelly, a wealthy attorney, noob to electoral politics, and former bigwig at Facebook, made the call to unleash the political Krakken, with online advertising and more against presumptive front runner Harris' record as District Attorney of San Francisco. This is pretty much politics as usual. Nasty, annoying, yes. Unexpected? No! (Remember that ugly race between Westly and Angelides in the 2006 primary? Wait, you forget about trivial, annoying BS? Good for you - you're saner than I then.)
Apparently no one told Kamala Harris' campaign that, unlike an uncontested race in Safe San Francisco, an open Democratic primary can quickly become an unruly brawl. Thus, the Harris campaign responded to the online ad buy and the YouTube video by losing their collective sh*t, and using weasel words to attack the concept of online advertising. In particular, you can tell they just loved using the phrase "...in his new video, which the "privacy expert" Kelly has undoubtedly expertly placed on your Facebook homepage, Google searches, email inbox, or all three in recent days..."
In other words, be very very scared of the Big Bad Man Who Bought Google Ads and Snuck Into Your Computer at Night and Placed them. BE SCARED! BE OH SO SCARED OF THE SERIES OF TUBES!!!!
GIve me a fucking break. Either the Harris campaign has no clue how Google ads work (!) or more likely, are just using weasel words to create some weird impression of Kelly - ironically what they accuse Kelly of doing. Oh, by the way, the Harris campaign has placed Google ads too. OH TEH HORRORS!
They follow it up by bragging about how many Facebook Fans they have. Really? I think I read about this in Who Cares Magazine. (I've written about why this metric can be total BS, go read it, it's funnier than this post).
Like it or not politics in 2010 are going to be nasty. Every candidate has a record that will get examined in fine detail by the media and their opponents. Ms. Harris is no exception to the rule and neither are the other 5 candidates. Plus, if she can't handle a mild attack like this, how in the heck is she going to fare against the Republican onslaught in the fall if she's nominated, when they will not have any problems calling her Satan's Choice for DA and throw the kitchen sink (and parts of her record) at her?
Personally, I've not heard one candidate actually talk about any issues that would have any bearing on things you or I might actually be concerned about. Instead I've received many e-begging emails asking me to find more friends for them on Facebook. Having a candidate act like an emotionally needy teen doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence that they know what they're doing, which is why I might just leave this part blank when I go "vote" in June.
Lately I've been going through various, disorganized boxes of things I've saved over the years, organizing them so I can finally frame my button collection and other odd memoribilia I've saved. It's not Hoarders level weird stuff either - being a minimalist who has moved around the country several times, I'm pretty strict on what remains with me and what is given away. I have been pleasantly surprised to find several items, one of which I've featured here - a MAD magazine from 1960.
