The campaign ad game
Here’s an article about a campaign ad for Fetterman:
It appears Democrat Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s “Trump-voting Republican” parents are not Trump-voting Republicans, but card-carrying Democrats. In what seems to be an attempt to paint himself as an everyman candidate who is more Pennsylvanian than partisan, Fetterman apparently talked his parents into claiming they are Trump voters and Republicans in one of his senate campaign ads.
“We want to tell you something about John Fetterman. He was raised by two Trump-voting Republicans right here in this house in York,” Karl and Susan Fetterman claim in the 30-second video. “Us!”
The problem is that Fetterman’s parents are not Trump supporters or Republicans. According to voting records obtained by The Federalist, Susan and Karl Fetterman have been voting Democrat for at least six years—beginning when the couple registered as Democrats to vote in the 2016 primaries.
The story caught my eye, but as I researched it I discovered that his parents might actually be telling the truth. Not that it really matters; as political lies go, it would have been a relatively minor one, and the Fetterman campaign is dominated by a far more basic lie. But here are my reflections on the ad and its background:
(1) If MAGA Republicans are so evil and so dangerous, why emphasize you were raised by two of them? Why would that be thought to appeal to the centrist voters I assume the Fetterman camp is trying to reach here? And why wouldn’t it repel the leftist MSNBC-type voters who represent his base? It might dampen their enthusiasm to vote for Fetterman.
(2) Fetterman is 53 years old. Whatever “raising” his parents did of him would be assumed to have ended at least 30, perhaps even 35, years ago, back at the end of the Reagan era and then the Bush 1 years. Trump was already famous, but it would have been impossible to vote for him because he wasn’t running for office. The Republican Party during the Reagan years was a different kettle of fish than it is today – as was just about everything.
(3) However, it’s possible Fetterman really was raised by Republicans; for example, this April 2021 article about Fetterman mentions vaguely that, when Fetterman was a teenager, “His family members were all Republicans, so he was a conservative too, though ‘not in an aggressive or angry way.'”
I love that last part – he wasn’t an angry Republican back when he was a supposed conservative.
(4) It occurred to me that Fetterman’s parents may have registered as Democrats for the 2016 primary in order to vote for their son. Sure enough, when I checked, I found this:
Fetterman ran for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat in 2016, finishing third in the Democratic primary. He ran for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 2018, defeating a field of candidates that included incumbent Mike Stack in the Democratic primary and winning the election with incumbent Governor Tom Wolf.
And of course Fetterman also entered the Democratic primary in 2021. All of this could easily explain his parents’ registration as Democrats, beginning in 2016.
But Trump voters? I suppose it’s possible, and no one can challenge them anyway because, when last I checked, we still have the secret ballot.
All of that aside, I can’t figure out why the Democrats didn’t replace Fetterman early on, when it became apparent to them that he was seriously challenged in the mental arena. They seemed to think that with the enormous help of the MSM they could cover it up, and for a while they did that successfully enough. But why bother – why have to deal with it at all, why not substitute another candidate? That remains a puzzle.
Speaking of Democrat campaign ads that lie, there’s this:
The advertisement, which was paid for by the California Democrat Party, was shared by California (CA) governor Gavin Newsom and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in favor of CA’s Proposition 1, which would codify abortion as a state constitutional right.
In the advertisement, Lee University student Macy Petty is shown falling to her knees outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. and crying after the decision to topple Roe was announced on June 23. The word “sad” is flashed over the clip as a voice narrates “when [the decision] happened we got mad, sad, scared. But now, we can get to work.”
Petty, however, claims the campaign misrepresents her as she was at the Supreme Court alongside Students for Life of America- who’s logo can be seen on a banner directly behind Petty in the featured advertisement…
“It’s embarrassing for their side that they had to stoop this low…they couldn’t find a pro-choice girl who’s crying at the court. They had to manipulate footage of a pro-life girl,” she continued.
That’s a minor lie compared to the major lies that are promulgated every day by ads from the left. But it’s nevertheless interesting that the left feels the need to lie even in such a minor matter.
Then again, campaign ads in general aren’t known for their veracity. I wonder how well they work these days – how many people are actually swayed by them? I bet it’s fewer than it used to be.
The very fact that in recent polls (hardly to be trusted, but still influential in molding public opinion) the cognitively-impaired Fetterman (even before his stroke, a man of no accomplishment and a worthless purveyor of insanely stupid policies) is basically tied with Oz proves (as is the case with the disastrous Hobbs in AZ and the even worse Barnes in WI) demonstrates, beyond any reasonable doubt, that roughly half the citizenry can be propagandized into support of candidates who are clearly unfit to serve in any capacity whatsoever simply because they are running in opposition to the Republicans, despite the fact that it is undeniably true that it is Democratic Senators who are aiding Biden and the rogues’ gallery in his administration in bringing down our republic and Democratic mayors who are destroying many of our largest cities and Democratic governors who are ruining IL and CA and NY, amongst other states.
It also assumes that his parents moved left over their lifetimes.
That is, historically, incredibly unusual. It is *always* the other way round.
I probably shouldn’t comment, but I know Karl and Susan Fetterman socially, not well, and had some dealings with his insurance agency in a prior life. Their son Gregg also works with Karl at Kling Brothers Agency. My impressions of them were as typical Chamber of Commerce or old country club Republicans of a type very familiar in middle class and upper middle class Pennsylvania. Kind of respectable, middle of the road in politics but genial to all regardless of others’ opinions.
I think it highly likely that they changed registration to be able to vote for their eldest son John. They are not terribly wealthy, just prosperous enough to have supported John through the years along with their other children, and I doubt that they are motivated by anything other than love for their family. Trump voters? Possibly, in 2016 Trump won every county in the Republican primaries, which shocked me (hardly ever happens in PA), and York County was strongly pro-Trump. BTW, John Fetterman won every county in his primary this year against Conor Lamb, that was unusual as well.
Dan D:
That’s what I think as well.
That is, historically, incredibly unusual. It is *always* the other way round.
Has George Will been briefed?
In Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly (D, of course) has done the same thing.
“This Republican is voting for Laura Kelly,” when the person is a life-long D who changed her registration the day before the commercial was shot.
One of the reasons I quit watching TV is political ads. Here in Arizona, there were nearly nonstop ads for Kirsten Synema and Mark Kelly 18 months before the elections. It’s worse now.
One of the reasons Iowa guards its “us first” presidential race status is the money spent by candidates and PACs. Campaigns pay top dollar for ad slots compared to say, Joe’s Furniture. Hotels, car rentals, food, logistics, it ads up. Kamala Harris spent something like 80 million dollars only to withdraw before the caucuses.
Campaign manager/ad buyer is a nice gig. You collect seven percent off the top, no matter what.
But I think that there are so damn many ads that most folks tune out. All of that money is spent to lure the undecided 20 percent.
Fetterman is such a Jewish name. That’s why they didn’t replace him early on: that would be antisemitism.
Somewhat related to some of the above-
The reason that I am a small government person is that big government has destroyed our society and culture.
Big (i.e., Federal) Government plays a dominant role in our health care, education, law enforcement, food supply, communication. It has taken over the previous role that religion played in the care of the disadvantaged. And it takes a minimum of 15%, and in the case of the more productive people, up to 50% of our income.
As a consequence of that, who runs the government determines who runs our lives. It matters, way too much.
Worse, as a consequence of its inefficiency, it at the same time does all of this poorly, and inefficiently enough that opportunities for graft abound.
The only way out of this is to get the government back to its enumerated powers. I know its not going to happen, but to me it justifies voting for certain people and against others.
Why didn’t the party replace Fetterman?
For the same reason they are all-in for Biden. He’s the ultimate “reliable” vote. He doesn’t have enough gray matter left to get feisty, and the family/toadies/posse know which side their bread is buttered.
@ Gordon > “But I think that there are so damn many ads that most folks tune out. All of that money is spent to lure the undecided 20 percent.”
My guess (because this is not a research paper, so I haven’t invented any data or misused any statistics) is that people believe they are tuning them out, but if the ads are playing, even in the background, then the “narrative” is still going into their brains, to the extent that they internalize the propaganda of one of the sides (based on pre-exiting preferences?) so that later they THINK they are making up their own minds, but are just going with what now seems familiar and “normal” because it’s been in the background for so long.
Quiz: how many commercial jingles (especially for food) can you recall, and do you ever “involuntarily” think of them when you are at the store?
Meanwhile, back in the Land of AZ, Kari Lake shows once again that she is one seriously dangerous candidate….
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/arizona-gop-governor-frontrunner-kari-lake-accuses-legacy-media-spreading-fake-news
Key graf:
‘…“Guys, we’re going to do a tutorial on how fake bogus, defamatory news is made,” Lake told a gauntlet of legacy media outlets in Phoenix….
‘…Lake said while meeting with police officers and firefighters, “my desperate opponent, who is sinking like a lead weight in water, pulled a stunt, and you guys fell for it. She put out a defamatory statement, and you all ran with it.”
‘ “You didn’t do your journalistic duty. It was malpractice in journalism like I’ve never seen before. And it was an effort, I believe, to influence this election.”…’
[Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
She knows what it’s all about. SHE COMES FROM THERE…. And as the saying goes, you can’t kid a kidder…
“The campaign ad game”
A “game” of another (if similar) feather….
“The COVID coverup begins to unravel”—
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2022/10/28/the-covid-coverup-begins-to-unravel-n506352
H/T Powerline blog.
Several other things to “consider”:
https://twitter.com/mattwridley/status/1586289378871021569
https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1583914185078894592?cxt=HHwWgMCjxebjmPsrAAAA
File under: High stakes.
“All of that aside, I can’t figure out why the Democrats didn’t replace Fetterman early on, when it became apparent to them that he was seriously challenged in the mental arena. They seemed to think that with the enormous help of the MSM they could cover it up, and for a while they did that successfully enough. But why bother – why have to deal with it at all, why not substitute another candidate? That remains a puzzle.”
You could just as easily ask why Crooked Hillary, or SLO Joe Biden weren’t replaced, when it became obvious that they physically couldn’t do the job that they were running for. My answer first, is that it was their turn. And secondly, it doesn’t matter much who the Dems run. They usually get elected based on the strength of their local or national political machine. So many esp Dem governors and Senators are just bland politicians, mostly indistinguishable from other career Dem politicians.
Republicans are often little better. McCain and Romney got the Republican Presidential nominations because it was their turn. As was the case of Bob Dole and GHW Bush before them. I do sometimes wonder whether Mitch McConnell was Harry Reid’s long lost brother. The one place where the Republicans have an edge here, is that so many of their state and federal office candidates had real careers before politics. And they tend to be more colorful.
Mark Kelly ran negative ads in AZ against Blake Masters all summer. If Kelly succeeds in winning it will be all that unanswered money spent, mostly from California. One party CA can spend its money elsewhere.
Bruce Hayden:
I don’t agree with your comparisons.
Hillary Clinton had a couple of incidents in 2016, but she was certainly physically up to the job and she still is. What’s more, she had a huge national following among Democrats. Biden had been Obama’s VP and had that going for him. In neither case was there an obvious good replacement.
In contrast, Fetterman was not such a big deal in Pennsylvania, his physical and mental problems are more extreme, and he could have been replaced pretty easily by a decent candidate in Conor Lamb.
In neither case was there an obvious good replacement.
There were plenty of good replacements for Biden in 2020. It’s just that Democratic voter did not take an interest in any of them.
Hillary Clinton had a couple of incidents in 2016, but she was certainly physically up to the job and she still is.
Non ci credo.
Why WOULD anyone vote for a Republican, Nancy?
Maybe…just maybe, after what happened to yer husband, YOU should vote for a Republican?
Or maybe because of all the crises that YOUR party has engineered (and then tried to ignore or cover up)?
For example, maybe cuz’ a this?
Fentanyl Strikes the West Coast, Killing Thousands”—-
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/fentanyl-california-santaclara/2022/10/30/id/1094097/
Just a thought….
Of course, YMMV…
Best October surprise ever. Lightbringer shouted down to “F*** Joe Biden”. Jimmy Kimmel calling Chief Twit a piece of S***. The Pelosi storyline gets weirder.
“…weirder…”
Well, tagging the perpetrator as a right-winger—or as right-wing-inspired—IS a bit of a stretch, as is accusing the Republicans of “demonizing” their political opponents…
(OTOH we are on the cusp of Halloween…)
But as usual, the Democrats are running wild with their one-size-fits all PROJECTION RACKET strategy, at which they demonstrate remarkable talent (and ingenuity).
More importantly, or amusingly, they are clearly still under the impression that they can fool ALL of the people ALL of the time.
I guess we shall soon see.
File under: Trick or trick!
Art Deco:
There were no good replacements. If by “good” you mean “more adequate then Biden if they had been elected” then PERHAPS some of them would have been better, although I think most of them would have gone along with the leftist agenda just as Biden has.
But that’s not what I mean by “good.” The reason the Democrat establishment put their full weight behind Biden was because they judged him (I think correctly) as the only person who could beat Trump or who could be successffully helped to beat Trump. That’s because he had that Obama glow as Obama’s VP and could also present himself as both experienced and moderate. A lot of voters bought it.
Art Deco:
All the hype about Hillary’s having Parkinson’s and all sorts of things like that was wrong, and it was obviously wrong at the time. It’s now 6 years later and she’s still going quite strong. I wrote a few posts about Hillary’s health back when she was running, but I can’t find them now, but my point was that the evidence for anything serious going on with her was poor.
TV ads are generally an enormous waste of money. Several points:
1. Now that Democrats are the party of the super rich, they have had a huge advantage in spending.
2. The ads are terrible. Any of us could put together simple ads that hammer the long parade of horribles that the Democrats now own. GOP rarely scores effectively with all the money spent.
3. With less than 1% of the amounts spent on tv ads, a conservative group of talented meme creators (and compilers) could produce devastating material for people to spread on social media and via text and email which would be far more effective in producing extra marginal votes. No, I don’t have any research to back that up. But I am 100% convinced it is true.
4. Same thing for blog posts and Substack content. Whether by the actual GOP or simply a conservative/libertarian deep pocket, a well-edited compilation of the strongest arguments and fact-based posts that everyone could rely on would be huge. There is no reason to rely on Republican candidates to make the arguments that need to be made. Lefty groups don’t sit back and wait for Dems to make their claims. Thought leaders and communicators on the right need to step up and provide year round, all years, access to all the arguments in an organized manner. Would be far more productive for elections than another ten or 20 million in wasteful tv ads.
Here’s an example to show how history is buried under lies — Bush’s tax reforms dramatically shifted the tax burden away from the middle class and on to the highest earners. You have to search long and hard to find anything about that by google search. Even a lot of conservatives are surprised to hear that (demonstrating the power of Dem lies, message discipline and a news media propaganda echo).
Example 2 — our current inflation is due to a whole host of bad Democrat policies. Lots and lots. Republican politicians have been pathetically awful at pointing out most of them. They seem content to simply blame Biden because he is prez, gas prices are high, and Dems spent a bunch. This is a huge, missed opportunity. So much more:
— lockdowns (lots of horrible policies, lots of ways they damaged economy and ultimately contributed to inflation)
— vaxx mandates (reduced labor force significantly at the margin)
— paying people not to work [this was huge. Can’t be overemphasized]
— BLM riots and destruction
— out of control crime keeping people from returning to work
— Supply chain idiocy: a) Cal Democrats outlawed trucks over ten years old. b) local Democrats’ law limited container stacks in port to only two high instead of the normal six. Reduced port capacity by 2/3. Huge part of supply chain problem. c) instead of leaning on local and state Dems to fix issues, Biden simply required waiting ships to move farther from shore to anchor so not as visible. This should have been hammered home because it is a perfect example of Biden/Dem idiocy and total focus on spin. d) Los Angeles rail yards were crime central. Check the photos. The unwillingness of lefty Dems in LA to provide police, arrest thieves and prosecute them caused massive theft and vandalism of rail cars.
Conservatives/libertarians should relentlessy hammer home that all the Dem idiocy at all levels worked to wreck the economy, raise prices and hurt all Americans regardless of whether they live in a blue or red area.
Can’t be denied that she suffers from chronic ghoulishness.
Or is that Pelosi’s “issue”.
Hey, maybe they should start a support group.
this is who karl rove is supporting
https://thepostmillennial.com/flashback-dem-candidate-for-governor-josh-shapiro-sponsored-event-at-drag-queen-gay-bingo?utm_campaign=64502
All ye’ need to know…
Remember that murder plot against Judge Kavanaugh?
(You don’t? Don’t blame ye’…)
“Shellenberger: Pelosi & Kavanaugh Murder-Plots Expose Media Double-Standard”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/shellenberger-pelosi-kavanaugh-murder-plots-expose-media-double-standard
I would add that all those SF “commoners” who over the past several years were mugged, robbed, beaten up, violated, vandalized, threatened, humiliated…guess they don’t count…for anything…not in the Democratic Party playbook anyway…
This looks like it should make a pretty decent campaign ad:
(But once again, for whom?…)
“Biden admin accuses Arizona of trespassing by building barrier on U.S.-Mexico border”—
https://www.foxnews.com/us/biden-admin-accuses-arizona-trespassing-building-barrier-u-s-mexico-border
Opening grafs:
‘ Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey was accused this week by the Biden Administration of trespassing as the Republican governor makes efforts to fill gaps along the U.S.-Mexico border with shipping containers.
‘ Ducey announced last week that he would have crews install shipping containers along a section of the border to fill gaps not covered by a wall. The announcement came two weeks after federal officials ordered him to take down containers he had placed in the southwestern part of the state.
‘ The Republican governor then sued and requested the courts allow Arizona to keep 100 shipping containers, double stacked with barbed wire on top, in place near Yuma.
‘ The containers were put in place in August to fill gaps in the border, which Ducey said was pushing back against “the inaction of the Biden Administration in stopping migrants from entering the state from Mexico…”….’
The message is clear:
You are not supposed to protect yourself.
You are not supposed to defend yourself.
You are not ALLOWED to defend and protect yourself.
(That is, if you are a Republican or if you run a Republican state…Or unless your name is Pelosi…)
We’re getting a lot of ads in Ohio from people that say they’re Republican but won’t vote for JD Vance because he didn’t like Trump in 2016. Nobody knows who these people are.
The reason the Democrat establishment put their full weight behind Biden was because they judged him (I think correctly) as the only person who could beat Trump or who could be successffully helped to beat Trump.
People alienated from Trump would have voted for a dead dog in the road. The question at hand is whether or not someone else would have offended fewer persuadables. And, yes, I think most of them would have. Bernie Sanders has a vigorous counter-constituency, but the rest of them do not, with the possible exception of Elizabeth Warren.
All the hype about Hillary’s having Parkinson’s and all sorts of things like that was wrong, and it was obviously wrong at the time. It’s now 6 years later and she’s still going quite strong.
It wasn’t hype. It was one physician living in Florida who put his name on it in a series of explanatory videos, and he was cautious in his presentation. Since any of her public appearances are carefully curated, we have a deficient understanding of just what her condition is.
Some Parkinson’s patients decline very slowly, some decline catastrophically in just a few years. Michael J. Fox has a screen credit dated 2021; he’s had Parkinson’s for 30 years.
It doesn’t have to be Parkinson’s. Dr. Noel does make the case that something very odd is going on with her.
The whole “was raised in a mean household that was conservative/religious” always seemed suspect to. me. Maybe you were raised in a conservative and religious household, but I doubt many stories where it claims the odd duck prog, whether growing up or a now political/social convert, as the victim in such a one-sided tale. If leftists are now throwing in moral grayness in entertainment in stories that don’t involve them pontificating, then they should also throw some of that into their own personal lives when they’re made to reflect on their younger selves. Maybe you were just being the most boring rebellious, edgy 18 year old. Maybe you were being insufferable during the holidays back from second year of university.
Art Deco:
Of course there were people who hated Trump enough to vote for anyone else. But not enough people. Biden attracted those people plus he was acceptable to more people in the middle. Polls reflected it, as well. He had the best chance of beating Trump. Especially compared to Sanders, who was the front-runner at the time that the Democrats threw their weight behind Biden.
As for Hillary’s health, of course many people took the Parkinson’s talk and ran with it. It also was incorrect – she has no reason for a diagnosis of Parkinson’s even 6 years later and didn’t back then, whatever that doctor said. Parkinson’s is VERY difficult to diagnose in its early stages and the symptoms are common ones in older people – difficult to diagnose even when a physician has examined the patient.
I happen to know a lot about Parkinson’s.