Candidates' visits, ads cause 'campaign fatigue'
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10/23/2004
Candidates' visits, ads cause 'campaign fatigue'
Saturation: 4. [n] a condition in which a quantity no longer responds to some external influence." -- www.hyperdictionary.com
Joining the bitter dogfight for the White House, President Bush's Scottish terrier, Barney, will deliver "a major policy speech" Tuesday at the Humane Society of Lackawanna County, according to a campaign source who declined to be identified.
The address, expected to amplify the president's remarks at Friday's rally in Wilkes-Barre Township, will be the first time a first pet has addressed the voters of Northeastern Pennsylvania since Socks, the White House cat under President Clinton, electrified the Lake Winola Chapter of Cat Lovers Against Bob Dole.
"Expect Barney to highlight the critical differences between his straightforward, Kibbles 'N' Bits worldview and the hyper-nuanced, Science Diet sensibilities of John Kerry's German Shepherd, Cym," the source said. "By the way, that's pronounced, 'Kim,' and it's a male dog. I'm no expert, but that spelling looks pretty French to me."
Of course, the president's dog isn't actually coming here (he's speaking in Youngstown, Ohio, according to a second source), but if you took the start of this column seriously even for a second, it's perfectly understandable.
President Bush's latest rally was his third visit to Northeastern Pennsylvania this campaign season. He's been to the state a staggering 41 times since taking office, which is about three stops shy of triggering a restraining order.
Sen. Kerry has been here twice, and in Pennsylvania 21 times over the shorter campaign season. That doesn't count the occasional sleepover at the Pittsburgh area estate he shares with the Heinz fortune.
Vice President Dick Cheney has hit the area, too, as has Sen. John Edwards, and his wife, Elizabeth, who was firing vote-seeking smiles at Penn State's Worthington Scranton Campus Friday.
Considered key to corralling the state's 21 electoral votes, our neck of the woods has been choked with a dizzying array of campaign visits, advertisements, phone calls and mass mailings that frankly have me whistling past the TV, telephone and mailbox.
Don't misunderstand. I'm not complaining about the opportunity to cover the most powerful man on the planet and the man who wants to succeed him. It's exciting to suddenly be the center of the political universe, but all this high-profile attention is starting to wear me down.
It may even be affecting my marriage:
MY WIFE: "Are you ever going to take the garbage out?"
ME: "Look, I understand there are problems with the current garbage situation. Of course I understand that. But solving these problems is hard work, and it takes time."
MY WIFE: "How much time?"
ME: "I have a plan to cut the garbage surplus in half over the next two hours."
MY WIFE: "I have a plan to kill you if that garbage is still there in one hour."
ME: "You're only attacking my record on garbage because you don't have one!"
It's not just me who's suffering from "campaign fatigue." A recent poll by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University found nearly two-thirds of Americans "are tired of the presidential campaign and will be glad when it's over."
Campaign fatigue was particularly wilting in 10 battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and the Electoral Disaster Formerly Known as Florida. These states have been carpet-bombed with rallies and campaign ads, leading large blocks of voters to consider a referendum on building a giant plastic bubble that repels politicians and political ads.
The question would be added to the ballot in the next presidential election, which is already being challenged.
The Scripps Howard poll showed Democrats (59 percent) and Republicans (65 percent) are just about equally weary of the race, with senior citizens and women most likely to complain about the nastiness of campaign ads. In the battleground states, 91 percent of those polled said they had seen the ads, compared with 71 percent in the states the candidates take for granted. Only 23 percent said the ads said anything worthwhile about the issues in the race.
Because this poll was conducted in Ohio, where dogs have been known to sway the electorate, I hit the streets in search of a local perspective. I found bipartisan agreement on a few basic issues:
The election can't come fast enough.
The negativity of both campaigns has reached Vulcan depths.
Those new Burger King "breakfast in bed with the king" TV ads are industrial-strength creepy.
"I think it's wrong that they've spent all these millions and millions of dollars on all these ads and they're all so negative," said Christopher Concert, 30, of Dallas. I met Mr. Concert, a Bush supporter, outside Sen. Kerry's Tuesday rally in Wilkes-Barre. He was wearing a President Bush mask and I recognized it was the closest I'd ever get to interviewing a president.
"Just think of all the other things that money could have been spent on, things that might actually help people," he said.
Like, say, a giant plastic bubble that repels politicians and political and Burger King ads.
Mr. Concert added that he didn't think the repeated visits of the candidates were doing much to sway voters to either side, an opinion shared by Beth Kilker, 40, a Kerry supporter from Scranton. She doesn't own a John Kerry mask, but she is married to John Kennedy, and the garage of their Hill Section home is an election polling place.
"I don't think anyone's really listening anymore," she said. "Right after the convention, when Kerry came, it was thrilling, because he was in Scranton and there was all this momentum.
"I don't think the messages have changed much on either side since then. It's really just the same old talking points. I think people are just ready to get it over with."
Even people who get paid to think about it are weary, said Jean Harris, Ph.D., a political science professor at the University of Scranton.
"The fatigue, I think, is more in terms of tone and lack of substance," she said. "Voters are still asking questions and they're not getting answers."
While the steady stream of visits isn't likely to change minds about who to vote for, they have swayed many who may have thought about sitting out the election, Dr. Harris said.
"I haven't seen this level of voting conversation on the campus ever," she said. "The students are really passionate about it, and I think, at least in part, that it's because the candidates are here."
And they will likely continue to be, as long as the polls show Pennsylvania as a statistical dead heat.
Any minute now, Sen. Kerry's German Shepherd is expected to issue a statement cataloguing all the ways Barney has made a mess of the South Lawn.
In the meantime, I'm Chris Kelly and I approved this message.
CHRIS KELLY, the SaturDay columnist, flunked out of the Electoral College. E-mail him at [email protected].
©Scranton Times Tribune 2004
Candidates' visits, ads cause 'campaign fatigue'
Saturation: 4. [n] a condition in which a quantity no longer responds to some external influence." -- www.hyperdictionary.com
Joining the bitter dogfight for the White House, President Bush's Scottish terrier, Barney, will deliver "a major policy speech" Tuesday at the Humane Society of Lackawanna County, according to a campaign source who declined to be identified.
The address, expected to amplify the president's remarks at Friday's rally in Wilkes-Barre Township, will be the first time a first pet has addressed the voters of Northeastern Pennsylvania since Socks, the White House cat under President Clinton, electrified the Lake Winola Chapter of Cat Lovers Against Bob Dole.
"Expect Barney to highlight the critical differences between his straightforward, Kibbles 'N' Bits worldview and the hyper-nuanced, Science Diet sensibilities of John Kerry's German Shepherd, Cym," the source said. "By the way, that's pronounced, 'Kim,' and it's a male dog. I'm no expert, but that spelling looks pretty French to me."
Of course, the president's dog isn't actually coming here (he's speaking in Youngstown, Ohio, according to a second source), but if you took the start of this column seriously even for a second, it's perfectly understandable.
President Bush's latest rally was his third visit to Northeastern Pennsylvania this campaign season. He's been to the state a staggering 41 times since taking office, which is about three stops shy of triggering a restraining order.
Sen. Kerry has been here twice, and in Pennsylvania 21 times over the shorter campaign season. That doesn't count the occasional sleepover at the Pittsburgh area estate he shares with the Heinz fortune.
Vice President Dick Cheney has hit the area, too, as has Sen. John Edwards, and his wife, Elizabeth, who was firing vote-seeking smiles at Penn State's Worthington Scranton Campus Friday.
Considered key to corralling the state's 21 electoral votes, our neck of the woods has been choked with a dizzying array of campaign visits, advertisements, phone calls and mass mailings that frankly have me whistling past the TV, telephone and mailbox.
Don't misunderstand. I'm not complaining about the opportunity to cover the most powerful man on the planet and the man who wants to succeed him. It's exciting to suddenly be the center of the political universe, but all this high-profile attention is starting to wear me down.
It may even be affecting my marriage:
MY WIFE: "Are you ever going to take the garbage out?"
ME: "Look, I understand there are problems with the current garbage situation. Of course I understand that. But solving these problems is hard work, and it takes time."
MY WIFE: "How much time?"
ME: "I have a plan to cut the garbage surplus in half over the next two hours."
MY WIFE: "I have a plan to kill you if that garbage is still there in one hour."
ME: "You're only attacking my record on garbage because you don't have one!"
It's not just me who's suffering from "campaign fatigue." A recent poll by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University found nearly two-thirds of Americans "are tired of the presidential campaign and will be glad when it's over."
Campaign fatigue was particularly wilting in 10 battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and the Electoral Disaster Formerly Known as Florida. These states have been carpet-bombed with rallies and campaign ads, leading large blocks of voters to consider a referendum on building a giant plastic bubble that repels politicians and political ads.
The question would be added to the ballot in the next presidential election, which is already being challenged.
The Scripps Howard poll showed Democrats (59 percent) and Republicans (65 percent) are just about equally weary of the race, with senior citizens and women most likely to complain about the nastiness of campaign ads. In the battleground states, 91 percent of those polled said they had seen the ads, compared with 71 percent in the states the candidates take for granted. Only 23 percent said the ads said anything worthwhile about the issues in the race.
Because this poll was conducted in Ohio, where dogs have been known to sway the electorate, I hit the streets in search of a local perspective. I found bipartisan agreement on a few basic issues:
The election can't come fast enough.
The negativity of both campaigns has reached Vulcan depths.
Those new Burger King "breakfast in bed with the king" TV ads are industrial-strength creepy.
"I think it's wrong that they've spent all these millions and millions of dollars on all these ads and they're all so negative," said Christopher Concert, 30, of Dallas. I met Mr. Concert, a Bush supporter, outside Sen. Kerry's Tuesday rally in Wilkes-Barre. He was wearing a President Bush mask and I recognized it was the closest I'd ever get to interviewing a president.
"Just think of all the other things that money could have been spent on, things that might actually help people," he said.
Like, say, a giant plastic bubble that repels politicians and political and Burger King ads.
Mr. Concert added that he didn't think the repeated visits of the candidates were doing much to sway voters to either side, an opinion shared by Beth Kilker, 40, a Kerry supporter from Scranton. She doesn't own a John Kerry mask, but she is married to John Kennedy, and the garage of their Hill Section home is an election polling place.
"I don't think anyone's really listening anymore," she said. "Right after the convention, when Kerry came, it was thrilling, because he was in Scranton and there was all this momentum.
"I don't think the messages have changed much on either side since then. It's really just the same old talking points. I think people are just ready to get it over with."
Even people who get paid to think about it are weary, said Jean Harris, Ph.D., a political science professor at the University of Scranton.
"The fatigue, I think, is more in terms of tone and lack of substance," she said. "Voters are still asking questions and they're not getting answers."
While the steady stream of visits isn't likely to change minds about who to vote for, they have swayed many who may have thought about sitting out the election, Dr. Harris said.
"I haven't seen this level of voting conversation on the campus ever," she said. "The students are really passionate about it, and I think, at least in part, that it's because the candidates are here."
And they will likely continue to be, as long as the polls show Pennsylvania as a statistical dead heat.
Any minute now, Sen. Kerry's German Shepherd is expected to issue a statement cataloguing all the ways Barney has made a mess of the South Lawn.
In the meantime, I'm Chris Kelly and I approved this message.
CHRIS KELLY, the SaturDay columnist, flunked out of the Electoral College. E-mail him at [email protected].
©Scranton Times Tribune 2004