I have met the enemy and it is “them.”

I know this because I watch TV political ads. Try as I may to surf past them with the remote, I find that they’re everywhere.

One thing I’ve learned this campaign season is that many of the candidates have the same message: “My opponent is a profligate despot obsessed with using political power to advance his/her ambitions and to make his/her friends wealthy.”

In many cases those candidates espousing this view are in opposition to one another.

For instance, in the race for U.S. Senate, incumbent Elizabeth Dole (I’ve learned from her opponent) voted for tax breaks to companies that are shipping our jobs overseas, and therefore she’s against struggling families and out of touch with North Carolina.

On the other hand, her challenger, N.C. Sen. Kay Hagan (I’ve also learned from her opponent), has singlehandedly turned North Carolina into the most-taxed state in the Southeast. (It’s amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it.)

The governor’s race is just as informative. It’s been drummed into my brain that Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue is a leading member of Raleigh’s good ol’ boys, known collectively as the Status Quo Club.

Their mission is to raise taxes and give the revenues to their buddies.

What I find intriguing is that she got herself inducted into an elite, all-male society.

Her rival Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory (she tells me) voted himself a raise while denying the same for policemen and firefighters.

He’s also at odds (she says) with rural areas for getting highway money that he feels would be better spent on the Queen City’s burgeoning transportation system.

He’s thus chastised in this informative ad for trying to divide North Carolinians.

The presidential race, of course, is the gold standard for educating the electorate. Both camps are pulling no punches in instructing us as to the foibles of the opposition.

While most ads show pictures of the foe at times when he/she hasn’t been properly prepared for his/her closeup, there’s one of John McCain in which years have been taken from his 72 years.

In fact, as his record is being castigated as a mirror image of George W. Bush, he’s pictured looking more like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It appears that he’s unsure whether to smile or attempt a demeanor of contrition.

A particularly sobering criticism of Barack Obama doesn’t picture him at all. Instead, the camera freezes on a chair purported to be in the Oval Office and suggests he’s not prepared to sit there.

Of course, Sarah Palin – McCain’s running mate whose experience has also been a subject for the microscope – sets the record straight by saying that Obama is palling around with terrorists.

In the meantime, Obama’s choice for VP – Joe Biden – gets little attention. It’s almost like he’s an afterthought, a future trivia question.

They should all be so lucky.



Larry Penkava, who has written Now and Then since 1994, approved this message.