Well it didn’t take long to find another ad to make my eyes cross.
So let me get this straight, even though the hunter in the commercial seemed to care about the price of gas; he was most concerned about a tax on his bullets and rifles? Now unless you live in a magical land that lets you hunt any day of the year, how often are you buying bullets? Do you consistently buy more than one gun a month/year/week?
These sort of one issue ads make me sad for those who are trying to understand this election without a real base on the issues. To make a statement that Obama doesn’t understand hunting because he has never been hunting, is a completely illogical statement to prove someone’s ability to craft a piece of legislation.
If we follow that same logic then can John McCain make a stance on immigration rights, because I don’t think he or anyone in his family recently have tried to immigrate to this country? Can Barrack Obama speak to the need for breast cancer research as he hasn’t had breast cancer or even breasts? Or can Sarah Palin make a decision on funding for PhD research funding for innovation in alternative energy, because she hasn’t willingly set foot in a classroom in years? Or can Joe Biden claim to be working for new policies to combat racial discrimination for minorities as he hasn’t been a minority once in his life?
The real kicker was when they go on to say, “You don’ thave to be bitter to know that Barrack Obama isn’t the kind of change we need.” So you want me to remember that statment Obama made about rural Pennsylvanians being bitter and clinging to their guns and Bibles, huh?
Well I find it laughable that in a commercial that starts off with a bitter Appalachian hunter getting ready to go out on a hunt, filling up his pick-up truck with over priced gas, while being clad head to toe in woodland camoflauge. If they would have put a crucifix on him I would have thought this was a Daily Show parody, but alas this was meant to be the real thing. So let’s run down the checklist:
Bitter–Yes
Rural–Yes
Gun Clinger–Yes
So why do I feel that I can even touch these points? Well for one I grew up in central Pennsylvania. I worked in a store that sold hunting supplies, licenses, and firearms, and I lived in a house with many various types of guns ready for the hunt. However, I will say that I never once went hunting nor have I even shot one of the firearms my father owned. I never felt the need nor did I have the necessity to lure a relatively docile creature toward my location so that I could casually decimate it with an extremely overpowered weapon that left the hunting for finding just the right camo to make me look sporty and not outdated.
In short, Obama was right about a large portion of these types of voters. I wonder how much their votes would mean if the first day of buck season started on election day?
Update: It seems that McCain must have seen the same commercial and thought this is a nice tactic to employ. So this begs the question from before, is McCain experienced enough with hunting to know how to approach the “hunter” vote?
According to the interview below, McCain fishes but doesn’t hunt. His experience with firearms relates to his military experience, so does that readily relate to private ownership and restrictions on small caliber firearms? The answer is no.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Election 2008, John McCain, WTF | Tags: Barack Obama, Economy, Election 2008, John McCain, WTF
I had an idea to start a new portion of this blog directed at responding to some of the more outrageous political ads found on the web and television. These will be known as WTF’s or Wrongfully Twisted Facts. Though I know that “spinning” the truth has become a tried and true tactic, which I know is different than a strategy Sen. McCain, the often short sighted views and notions portrayed need another pair of eyes for explaination.
To start off I was extremely disappointed when I saw this ad from the McCain/Palin campaign:
So basicaly we are to believe that it was John McCain who saved the country by forming the bailout plan, understanding the economy as it were, and leading his fellow Congressmen into the light of recovery? But is that really the truth?
To add more slightly less than true statements to the fire, they go so far as to claim that Obama was “mum on the market crisis” and that the democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, had claimed that no one knew what to do. Well that may have been fairly true for the week before the crisis came to a head, but when the warning sirens went off, it seems to be the case that Obama offered some suggestions on what should be done before McCain had settled how he should recover from the gaffes let loose by himself and Gov. Palin. So for that line I think we can agree that McCain loses a point.
So how much help did Sen. McCain add to this process? If you take into consideration that McCain jumped from ignoring the crisis, to wanting to fire the Secretary of the Treasury, to being melodramatic about his role, and then interrupting the prior work done by the bipartisan party committees; then I guess John McCain did do “something.” Of course the guidelines being put forth, which were ironically suggested by Obama, have been stalled on several occasions by a small faction of Conservative Republicans. Now I wonder who they back and asked for directions when he was in town?
There was even more damning evidence that McCain was the real “mum”mer, when those attending the photo-op meeting of the President, McCain, and Obama claimed that the only person consistently asking questions during that time was Obama. McCain was curiously silent. Too bad his press makers weren’t so keen on that fact.
So how thin is the ice one can jump on when talking about economic crusadership? It’s amazing to see how far John McCain has come from not understanding the basics of economic policy to crafting the guidelines that could save the markets, your retirement, and that kitty in the tree over there (look out your window.) If you looked you might just have bought the ad from the start. 
