One of the reliefs of post-election will be the end of campaign appeals in my inbox. It is my own fault, as I sign up for everything in the hope of getting material for my blog. I think they are all written by the same person and they are all done in a very annoying manner. There is this incredible urgency for me to send it $5, $10 whatever.
I think it is like the way the baskets would come around multiple times at Mass, so that Monsignor O’Brien would get at leat thirty cents from each parishioner. And there is the presumed intimacy
Peter —
It’s Election Day!! Millions of Americans are casting their ballots today and participating in our democracy.
I want to thank you for having my back during this campaign. This team gave me the strength to keep fighting.
This is the final step of the long journey we’ve been on together, but now it’s in your hands. Make history by heading to the polls today.
Thank you — let’s go!
Hillary
If I ever meet Hillary Clinton, I will address her as Madame Secretary or, God willing, Madame President, so I really think that when she asks me for money she should call me Mr. Reilly, but I’m old fashioned that way.
The most troubling ad I got though was from Eric Trump.
Friend,
Our last ad we showed you did so well that we decided to release a new one — and go even bigger with a last-minute $4 MILLION final ad-buy.
It’s an UNPRECEDENTED two-minute ad that presents voters with the true stakes of this historic election.
I found the ad very disturbing.
There is an element behind it that I have sympathy with. Back in the day, I think there was a better deal for ordinary people who were ready to show up for work and do what needed to be done. I suspect historically it was transient thing. I had a factory job in college where with the lowest pay grade and a lot of overtime I made a years tuition in a summer.
Thinking that some asshole who focused on luxury housing and casinos wants to bring back those days, or could if he wanted to, is pretty delusional, but I can’t knock the guys who think that.
The thing that really concerned me was whether that piece was really effective propaganda on the Leni Riefenstahl scale.
I always refer questions like that to my filmmaker friend Jonathan Schwartz of Interlock Media. I was comforted by his response.
The Trump ad is meant to be an enduring anthem for conspiracy theorists, legitimized by the man who almost won the presidency. The use of compositing and special effects is average, mid level film technique and not spectacular. The important thing here is the message, and its pure and simple…there is a reason you are struggling, and that is because it is someone else’s fault and they did it to you and must be eliminated.
So the choice is kind of like you are in the fourth grade. Do you want to join the class bully’s gang and go beat up the kids from the other school? Or do you want to listen to the teacher?
Or put another way. Do we want to be ruled by the girls who went to college and got more knowledge or the boys who went to Jupiter and got more stupider?
Tell your inner ten year old to calm down, and vote like a grown up. If you do that you are allowed to skip watching the polls and stay up late watching war movies tonight.
____________________________________________________________________
Peter J Reilly CPA made donations to just about every presidential candidate and all he got out of it was a lot of annoying email.