The era of the “Ten Word” attack ad is upon us… good grief

I must have been too busy working in the grown-up world to notice it, but apparently the political games have begun. Someone brought to my attention an ad that ran in a local “newspaper” that I won’t grace with free publicity here. The ad runs as follows (poor sentence structure and all):

Trust me

I know how to spend your money!

State Representative Jesse White wants to decide which projects get the increased revenue from the casino money. The same money that was promised for property tax relief. Rather than allow that money to go to your local school district or municipality in the form of further tax relief, White wants to use the $12 million for more government spending rather than lowering your taxes!

Source: Observer-Reporter, 7/13/08

More Government spending means less dollars in your pocket!

The ad goes on to talk about how my opponent wants to go to your door and hand you a stack of small unmarked bills, so that the evil politicians don’t win.

 

Oh, good grief.

This ad is so completely filled with factual inaccuracies, I almost don’t know where to begin.

1. The money we’re talking about is the Washington County local share money from the Meadows Casino, which represents about 4% of the revenue from the one casino in Washington County. It is NOT the same money that is being designated for property tax relief statewide; that money comes from 34% of the revenues generated from all of the casinos across Pennsylvania. 
2. The money from the local share account is NOT government spending. The money was used for a competitive grant process that allowed local governments, non-profit groups and small businesses to apply for the money, which was approved by the Washington County Commissioners and dispersed through the Department of Community and Economic Development.
3. If my opponent had actually read the July 13 article in the Observer-Reporter, he would have seen that the whole point of the article was that I have been working like a madman to change the way we distribute the money to make sure more of it gets into our small towns and communities, as well as for much-needed water and sewer projects across the county. By doing this, we are putting money directly into the places where it needs to go in order to keep local taxes and utility tap-in fees low, which means (wait for it)… more money in the pockets of taxpayers.
4. If you have followed this story at all, I am only one member of a large review committee for the slots money, the distribution of which is at the sole discretion of the Washington County Commissioners. Maybe my opponent is running for the wrong office.
5. The very same issue of the “newspaper” his ad ran in also featured a story about how taxpayers in the Trinity School District each received $175 in property tax relief from the slots money this year; THAT was the money that was promised for property tax relief, and it was delivered as promised. No one ever promised that the Washington County Local Share Funds were to be used for direct property tax relief, which would have amounted to less than $40 per person this year.

The bottom line is that my opponent is either trying to confuse people or he doesn’t understand how the law works, either one of which should be disconcerting to the voters of the 46th District.

There was something about this ad that made me think for a little while, and not just about how wildly inaccurate it is, although that was certainly a major concern. There was something about the tag line- “More Government spending means less dollars in your pocket!”

Was it the fact that he unnecessarily capitalized the word “government”? The fact that “less dollars” doesn’t really sound like proper grammar? The exclamation point inserted at the end for no apparent reason? No, there’s something else here.

I have a feeling that this is the beginning of an onslaught of “ten word” attack ads, which basically give a slogan that sounds swell but lacks any real substance to back up the sentiment. This is similar to the phenomenon of the “ten word answer”. By way of further explanation, I will yield to a clip from one of my favorite television shows of all time.

 

1. More
2. Government
3. spending
4. means
5. less
6. dollars
7. in
8. your
9. pocket
10. !

Now I know why he used the exclamation point.