It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m listening to a ”spending, spending, spending” political ad on the local Pagosa Springs radio station. During commercial breaks from the reggae music, other ads played for various Colorado politicians. On television during the past several weeks, every commercial break is peppered with attack ads on another politician. Today in the Denver Post was an article with statistics on the out-of-state funding for political ads. The chart showed a percentage of the ad dollars spent on attack ads, and those spent on self-promoting ads. Only one candidate had spent nothing on attack ads and I had never heard of him.
I checked the mail today for the first time in at least seven days since that was the last time my son was here and he’s usually the one who walks to the cluster box behind the house. The box was pretty full, and glancing at the heavy paper stock involved in the stack it was apparent that the pile was mainly election ads.
Sorting the mail on the dining room table, my suspicions were confirmed – 19 times.
When my neighbor asked me a few days ago about one of the candidates and who I was going to vote for, I told her that judging by the ads on TV, all the candidates are evil and I don’t want to vote for any of them. Between just Ken Buck and Michael Bennett running for Congress, I’ve been inundated with ads that explain how one is a liberal spender who will waste all of my tax dollars, and the other is “too extreme for Colorado.” Sifting through the mail ads isn’t much help either.
A summary of 19 political mailers:
Brian O’Donnell gets the award for most political flyers, with SEVEN of the nineteen belonging to him. His opponent, J. Paul Brown has just three, with two being attacks on his “liberal lobbyist” opponent. One piece does not have J. Paul Brown’s name on it, but is a letter size flyer that tells me O’Donnell thinks I’m just a bottomless pit of money and supports massive spending increases.
O’Donnel’s flyers are varied. Three of his seven pieces are against his opponent and aimed at women and parents. Three of his 8 1/2 x 11 card-stock flyers deal with his own goals and aims for running. One piece is in a standard legal envelope, hand-addressed with a return label that bears his personal name. The letter inside appears to be hand-signed, based on my experiment with a liquid gel pen that looks similar and comparing under a 10x loop how the ink crosses the print in both O’Donnell’s letter and my own sample. That’s a lot of letters to personally sign, so I appreciate his effort. The letter itself speaks directly to the county I reside in, what he will do as a representative of my area, and O’Donnell admits he is a rookie running for public office. His candor also wins him points.
But wait, there’s more!
There was one piece about Ellen Roberts in my box. She is vacating the state representative seat that Brown and O’Donnell are running for and is setting her sights on the state senate. The one flyer sent talks about her record and what she will do in office. Her opponent is not named, nor is the position she is running for. The flyer touts her as a reformer for Western Colorado and was paid for by Quality Healthcare for Colorado, which is simply a political group backed by an large health insurance company. According to a Denver Post article online, the group has backed both a Democrat and a Republican in this year’s race.
Then there’s Ken Buck. I get a bad vibe thinking about his political beliefs when I hear his name, so the attack ads against him on TV must be striking a nerve with me. His two folded glossy flyers look very similar, but both have a different message that encourages the reader to open it and see what he is saying. I haven’t opened either one.
There are two anti-John Salazar flyers, both paid for by the Republican Party. One shows a good visual of how Nancy Pelosi is behind Salazar’s voting record, so I guess if you don’t like Pelosi then you shouldn’t vote for Salazar. According to the online Chieftan in Pueblo, Colorado, Salazar’s opponent Scott Tipton is heavily backed by the Republican National Congressional Committee and other conservative groups in an effort to unseat the three-term Democrat. The flyers don’t say who Salazar’s opponent is or mention that he is a Democrat, but instead threaten that he is bankrupting America. I wasn’t scared.
Bruce Whitehead’s cheerful flyer clearly tells me he is running for re-election for the Colorado State Senate and lists testimonials, leadership examples, and a nice photo of him with his family. Judging from the large photo on the front of the ad, he plays acoustic guitar. Whitehead gets the award for the largest flyer in my mailbox – 8 1/2 x 14, glossy card stock.
Moving on to the issues…
There were two pieces of mail about the same three issues on this year’s ballot: Propositions 60, 61 and 101. I had already heard a lot about the propositions from several sources, and this year is the first time I have seen so many people and organizations from both major political parties speak out together against what is called the “evil three”.
The letter-size card stock flyer about the issue is from a group called Active Citizens Together. The flyer urges me to vote yes on all three propositions in order to have tax relief that will create jobs. The ad was countered by one lone letter from my local electric company cooperative that I didn’t realize was political until I opened it hoping it wasn’t another disconnect notice. The letter stated their stance of ‘no’ on the propositions due to how one of them alone would be detrimental to their road crews. If vehicle registration fees are cut to almost nothing, there will be little to no funding for the state road department, meaning limited or no access on unplowed roads in emergencies.
One of the main arteries between two towns in our county has already seen plowing hours reduced to where the road is unmaintained between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. If you need to travel during those hours, you’re on your own thanks to an already lean budget in the state road department. Too many tax cuts mean limited essential services, so I wasn’t swayed by the scare tactic on the pro-proposition flyer.
Was I influenced?
Here I sit with 19 pieces of mail intended to influence my vote. The ads didn’t even include the two running locally in the county, although their letters and cards were present in previous mail. Conveniently, my mail-in ballot was also included in the stack of flyers, reminding me that I need to make a decision soon because November 2nd isn’t too far away.
Of all the flyers, only one campaign did make an impact in who I will vote for – Brian O’Donnell. I had never heard of O’Donnell and had only heard a little about Brown – some good, some negative. I’m not sure if it is because O’Donnell had so many flyers that his name stood out, or if it is the fact that three of his large flyers were so pleasant and self-promoting. Or maybe it was his hand-signed letter that made me feel he is trying to reach out personally. Either way, at least I know one candidate I’ll be voting for.
As for the rest of the flyers, the card stock will work nicely for backing on craft projects.