Political ads

The ad I referenced yesterday was an attack ad against Max Wall, candidate for Washington County District Attorney, who did end up losing the election. I am unhappy with the outcome and the ad, so let's spend a little bit of time on that.

I was first won over to Max Wall by one of his ads, where he was focused on using compassion and common sense on crime charges, especially drug ones. That probably made him look like too much of a hippie, but he ran another one about how identity should not affect personality, your position should not protect you from paying for your crimes.

That sounds much more tough on crime, but the two views aren't automatically contradictory. Jailing drug offenders is expensive and ineffective, and has tended to be very racist in how it has been carried out. We certainly don't need that.

There was also a message in the other ad that was reinforced with one final ad, about a police officer charged with domestic violence who was allowed to plead down and keep his weapon. Domestic violence is a great predictor of further violence, and a gun increases that danger, but how can he be a cop without a gun?

Obviously, the sheriff and former DA supported Wall's opponent, who had been the outgoing DA's assistant. I was never going to vote for him, largely because of two detention cases:

http://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/index.ssf/2016/09/accuser_in_prison_sex_case_jai.html

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/03/oregon_man_commits_no_crime_bu.html

The articles focus on the judges who allowed detaining the witnesses, but the DA decides whom to prosecute, and how, and keeping men in prison when you don't even have custody of the person you want to charge is pretty horrible, and imprisoning a woman who was raped in prison shows such a lack of regard for the victim that I can't even understand why you would bother prosecuting. There were other articles; it was terrible for her in there.

It shows a lack of regard for the average person, a willingness to abuse, and given that these involved people who could be marginalized for multiple reasons, it is not really a sign of holding everyone equal before the law. Therefore, Barton's previous service is a vote against him for me.

People know that executive positions - like president and governor - are important, but there are two office that may not get a lot of attention, but have a huge affect. Those are the secretaries of state and district attorneys.

Republicans made a concerted effort to make sure that more states had Republican secretaries of state.They did that because a state's secretary controls the election, Katherine Harris being just one example. Remember, one of the first things that happened with Richardson was a desire to redistrict before the census. We're stuck with him for now, but we should be aware of what is going on. The Voting Rights Act has been weakened and Russia has paid no penalties for tampering, so it matters.

District Attorneys are the key decision makers on who gets prosecuted and for what crimes and for what kind of penalties. Yes, they have to work with the existing laws, but there is room to exercise a lot of discretion, and it is their discretion. How they see people matters.

I mention this because of a key point of the ad. Yes, the manipulation of mustache was irritating, but the real issue was the sinister way in which they painted him receiving a donation from the Law & Justice political action committee, which has received donations from George Soros, meaning that MAX WALL WAS FUNDED BY A GEORGE SOROS SUPERPAC!

And people did hold that against him. He was getting outside superpac funding! And did you see that mustache? He looks like a cartoon supervillain!

Okay, yes, George Soros contributes a fair amount of money to politics. Superpacs aggregate donations from many small people to maximize the funds. Superpacs often donate in states where they are not based, though that may very well be in states from which some of their donors come. None of that is illegal, and it doesn't have to be nefarious, based on the values.

If the Koch brothers are supporting a candidate, I probably am not in favor of that candidate. This is not because they are not Oregonians, but because they are reprehensible human beings and their values are almost completely opposite to mine.

Do you know what George Soros' big cause has been? Fighting nationalism. Also ending poverty. Now that everyone is getting really poor and it's used to justify Nazis being Nazis because of economic anxiety, I can imagine he would contribute to many causes. Yes, if he were busing in voters over state lines, that would be illegal; it is also ridiculously impractical, so much so as to not be possible. I could almost wish that Soros were writing checks to protesters, because I could use the funding, but that's not how it works.

I guess my point is that I do not like deceptive practices, I do not like stupidity, and I do not like when it works.

A lot of the loudest voices out there sound pretty clownish, and they should be easy to see through. There are some pretty sophisticated machinations going on out there as well, and we need to be aware of that.