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November 12, 2006

Republicans + Negative Ads = - 34 Congressional Seats

TODAY'S STRIP

I love it when Lazy Azz Scott Stantis phones in a cut and paste strip with a flip remark and doesn't realize how much it reveals about himself.

Carmen and Winslow appear four times - drawn the same way in each, except for the color of the background which Stantis doesn't even do - just sitting there on a rock. Yeah, the PC blimp makes an appearance, probably because his editors said, "Dude, you keep turning in these boring, do-nothing strips we're going to replace your sorry butt with artists that actually take the time to, you know, DRAW." That's why he should be worried about his job not being there for him when he takes off in December.

Carmen sighs - she actually MISSES the negative campaign ads. That's right: Scott Stantis misses the Republican negative ads. Why do I say just Republican ads? Quick - name a negative Democratic ad. Nope, Stantis misses the subtly racist Corker ads suggesting black men just want to rape white women, the Republicans giving out Jon Tester and Tammy Duckworth's HOME phone numbers, and the Republicans showing Osama bin Laden blowing stuff up in an effort to scare us (boy, Osama didn't even have to buy advertising to get his message out there - the Republicans did it for him). Sure the Dems put out negative ads as well, but nothing on the level of the smear campaign the Republicans were running.

And to that I say "thank you." While negative ads were a great tool in the past they backfired this time. People were already sick and tired of the corrupt and morally bankrupt Republicans in charge - they didn't need reminding that all they had to run on was how bad their opponents supposedly were instead of touting their own accomplishments. What the hell had the Republicans actually accomplished? Medicare D? Giving the President the power to arrest anybody, throw them in a secret prison, and torture them forever? I don't think the American people wanted to hear, "Yeah, we're terrible - but boy, are the Democrats even worse!" Instead they went into the voting booths with images of George Allen calling a kid with dark skin "Macaca" and welcoming him to America - even though he was not only born in America, he was born in Virginia - something not even Allen himself can say (he was born in San Diego).

Of course today's strip would have never run if Stantis wrote it this past Wednesday, after it was clear the Democrats had won. He would never admit that he misses all of the slime, knowing that it didn't work this time and his boys lost control of both the House and Senate due in no small part to the negative campaigns. "Be afraid" and "They want to raise your taxes!" and "If you vote for Dems, America loses and the terrorists win!" weren't enough to overcome the corruption, incompetence, and lack of direction in the Republican party. But boy, Stantis sure did love them when they were on the air. It's alright, Scott - you still have your platform to continue to be negative. I can't wait for you to go after Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Dems, because just like Karl Rove I don't see you learning the lesson that the people are tired of your negative (and unfunny) message and want something positive and unifying.

Side note: why didn't Stantis take advantage of the blimp being there? He could have set up that it used to fly negative ads - heck, just one day this week showing the blimp overhead with something like "Ned Lamont kicks puppies" would have set up how negative the ads were, and then today Carmen could reminisce about the campaigns. Instead, it's just puttering along for no reason other than he didn't want to be accused once again of being a lazy azz sumbitch that could care less what his "fans" want: something more than a guy who spends less than ten minutes slapping together a Sunday strip when every other comic strip artist realizes it's the most read strip of the week. Man, I can't wait for those two weeks in December.

Comments

Posted by: MikeM at November 13, 2006 03:02 PM