Risky Scheme Redux

I miss so many of the TV ads with my eclectic (okay, odd) TV habits. The great equalizer is sports, where I see a lot of commercials I don't encounter. The Bronco game on Monday Night was no exception. (Surely, if the Bengals can beat the Broncos, Mr. Nader should not be counted out...)

I loved the "No on 36" commercial. Something like "if even Pete Coors and Ken Salazar agree 36 is bad, if both the Post and News agree it's bad..." Very good and dear to my heart.

A Ken Salazar commercial from the campaign was pretty good. I'm fully committed to the beer man, but will quickly concede that AG Salazar is not an empty suit.

A Democratic Senatorial Committee spot, however, gets thumbs down from jk. The background footage is wacky-early prototype planes' and jet packs' failing, while the announcer lists all of Pete Coors's "wacky ideas" like privatizing Social Security, lowering the drinking age, and a national sales tax (of 30% to replace the Corporate tax).

First: the ad is disingenuous. The drinking age was a random comment some time back that he has not pushed. He wondered, aloud, that it was odd that an 18 year old was old enough to vote, and old enough to be shipped to combat, yet could not be trusted with an icy cold can of Coors Light.

The sales tax is presented as 30% and is positioned as a replacement for Corporate tax. I think this is deceptive conflating. One can believe that a Corporate tax is bad, that a sales tax is preferable -- I watch the Coors campaign and these are most definitively not issues he is running on.

Worst, the ad is Al-Gore-Risky-Scheme with a soundtrack. The Democratic Senatorial Committee says that we can't possibly change anything! It's too dangerous! We can't change the tax model ('cause it's so swell), we can't change Social Security (because it is so robust), we can't change the school system ('cause it's performing so well).

So Democrat Blog Readers, (by which I mean, Silence): aren't you sometimes embarrassed that your party has become the official status quo party? No new ideas are allowed -- we can throw more money at the old ideas, for more money will fix all of the broken things in our government, but new ideas are too scary.

The left may call themselves "progressive" but it is the right, specifically the GOP that are bringing new ideas to the table. And the Democrats seem to have nothing to offer but demagoguery in return.

Posted by jk at October 27, 2004 11:34 AM