Election campaign smashes political correctness in the US

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Published: 21 May, 2010, 09:28

TAGS: Election, Politics, Human rights, Mass media, Immigration, USA

Political combat in the US is in full swing, with a heated campaign for the country's primaries. The mid-term elections are due in November, but the mood surrounding them has already been dubbed anti-Washington.

And much of the advertising has taken a firm stance against political correctness.

The party may be over after this week’s primaries, but this campaign season continues to get wild. Candidates are pulling out all the stops to get voters’ attention.

Candidate Dan Fanelli starred in an ad showing a plane, a terrorist and himself, making a general promise that terrorists would never get close to planes if Fanelli is elected and sent to Washington.

Other candidates get themselves busy in various activities – from bashing Muslims to bashing each other.

Websites like YouTube, which used to worry about censoring under-age dummies, now have to worry about politicians accusing each other of receiving illegal money on the Internet.

Republicans transformed an innocent documentary of the bare-chested Ohio attorney general into a scene from a porno that was too hot for the site, legally-speaking, so it was pulled off for copyright infringement.

“We’re Republicans. We should be better than that,” is how they commented on that.

Ohio Democrats fired back with their own topless attack ad, portraying men stating that the Republican candidate took the shirts off their backs.

It looks like candidates are breaking out the big guns to convince the electorate even for peaceful posts.

They are airing out their biggest gripes. Candidate Dale Peterson, who is after the Republican nomination for the Alabama Agriculture Commission, accused opponents of “stealing yard signs in the dark of night from my supporters!”

Others use more trivial grievances. Candidate Tim James asks “Why do our politicians make us give drivers license exams in 12 languages?” And answers: “This is Alabama. We speak English. If you want to live here, learn it. We’re only giving that test in English if I’m governor.”

Another candidate running for governor of California does not need a campaign ad to get attention for his platform. He wants to send pedophiles to live in exile on an island off the coast of the state.

It is not lost in the ads that this election environment has been deemed anti-Washington.

One of the ads states that, “Now gorged on our taxpayer dollars, Nancy Pelosi has grown into a power-hungry goliath, defying the will of the American people.”

If anti-establishment targeting of Nancy Pelosi will not work for your political persuasion, you cannot go wrong in linking your opponents with mobsters like Tony Soprano.

This is anti-incumbent, and if worse comes to worst, anti-political correctness. But from the looks of the ads, there are plenty of newcomers coming out who are not afraid to get their hands dirty and do seemingly anything not to keep them clean.

Peter Loge from Milo Public Affairs says attack ads of this type are nothing new for US politics.

“It’s important to know first of all that America has a long history of such things. The president in Washington is called a whore-master, for example,” he said and dated the first examples of such political ads as old as 1968.