Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Alberta Darling: I've Got Nothing Good To Say About Myself

Most people are mainly focused on the presidential race, for obvious reasons. However, there are still other important things to consider this election season. One of these things is the race in which State Representative Sheldon Wasserman is challenging incumbent Alberta Darling for her seat on the State Senate. This race is becoming more and more like a smaller version of the presidential race, between Barack Obama and John McCain.

The race so far has consisted on a lot of innuendo and false accusations, just like the presidential race. And just like in the presidential race, it is the Republican, Darling, that has gone negative in her desperation to win. In fact, her entire campaign has been a negative one.

First, when Sheldon Wasserman has been actually going out and knocking on doors himself, Darling tries to strike back, saying how her staff won't be outworked by one man.

When this failed, Darling then played for the sympathy card, falsely accusing Wasserman of making statements about her health and the fact that she is a breast cancer survivor. While I am glad for Alberta's ability to conquer this horrid disease, it is extremely tacky to accuse Wasserman of such vulgarity, when his own wife is right now fighting the same disease.

Darling then proves she is no darling with more negativity when she, during a debate against Wasserman, starts playing on the Republican talking point of voter fraud. This has been already defined as being a bogus political stunt by the Republicans, but that doesn't slow Darling from trying to avoid the topics and trying to play on people's fears.

Darling's descent into desperation continues as she tries to accuse Wasserman of not adhering to the tax pledge, even though she cannot cite one specific vote. Her biggest argument was that he refused to put the State of Wisconsin into a stranglehold with TABOR.

Even more recently, she is using Grover Norquist as an attack dog. As I pointed out earlier, this is the same Grover Norquist with ties to Newt Gingrich, Jack Abramhoff, and has had a role in drafting Bush's economic policies, which, unless you've been in a coma until just now, you'll realize led us to a full recession, and has this country at the brink of another Great Depression.

Mmmm. I think I would have asked for help from someone more credible than him.

All of this brings us to the battle of the commercials. Wasserman has been airing his commercial for a couple of weeks. His ad is light, humorous, positive, and quirky. The ad, much like Wasserman's campaign, reminds me of the same winning strategy that Russ Feingold had when he first won his U.S. Senate seat.

Darling's ad is darker and much angrier. It does nothing but attack Wasserman. Her ad doesn't even mention her name, except at the end when it says it was paid for by her campaign.

My question is this: Why hasn't Darling ever said one positive thing about herself? Is her track record so bad that she can't find one positive about her entire career?

Well, she has been honest about one thing in her career. That was when she admitted she did a very poor job of it when she passed the law to take over Milwaukee County Child Welfare and privatize it. Darling has admitted that she does not approve of the job she's done being part of an advisory committee for her monstrous creation.

I guess she has also figured out that being able to swing a mean golf club, due to lots and lots of practice, doesn't really make a good qualification to be a State Senator.

I can only hope that all of this negative from Darling has the same effect on her campaign that it is having on McCain's. But whether it is or not, it's definitely not a sign that she deserves to be reelected.

2 comments:

  1. Of course, you need to attack Darling, because you cannot defend the exposure of Wasserman's outright lie that he failed miserably to abided by the "No Tax" pledge, and continues to lie about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. An anonymous commenter goes with an unsubstantiated allegation.

    How Darlingesque.

    ReplyDelete