Making A Career Of It

You can't watch more than three minutes of television in the Twin Cities these days without coming across a political ad. Most of them are negative and most are either for the US Senate race or the House race in CD3. It's not unusual to see three or four such ads in a row. The back and forth must make life tough for undecided voters as they get whipsawed by a stream of adverts questioning the integrity of Coleman-Franken-Madia-Franken-Paulsen-Coleman-Franken-Coleman.

One recent anti-Paulsen ad caught my attention. It's not put out by the Madia campaign directly, but is the work of some national Congressional Democratic group. Like many such ads, it attacks Paulsen for a variety of supposed sins. The one that fI ound amusing is the charge that spending increased by so many billion dollars during Paulsen's time as Minnesota House Majority Leader.

In the past, the usual charge that Dems level against Minnesota Republicans and their leaders (like Paulsen ad Pawlenty) is that they've cut the state's budget to the bone and failed to make the necessary "investments" to sustain our quality of life. I found it rich that a Democratic ad would now try to fault Paulsen for spending too much money.

It brought to mind a television ad from the classic Simpson's episode Sideshow Bob Roberts:

[scene shows prisoners going in a revolving door and coming out immediately]

Voice: Mayor Quimby supports revolving door prisons. Mayor Quimby even released Sideshow Bob -- a man twice convicted of attempted murder.

[scene shows prisoners leaving on escalator and ski lift]

Can you trust a man like Mayor Quimby? Vote Sideshow Bob for mayor.