This is why. You’ve got to check out the actual ad; it had me half laughing half furious.
I don’t write much about politics on this blog, but I have to admit that this has gotten me kind of riled up. Vermont just isn’t the sort of place where people have really vile, manipulative, negative campaigns like this. Our elected representatives in the House and Senate are very accessible and very human. So that’s why I assume this sort of campaign will blow up in Sanders’ opponent’s face. At least I hope so. Bernie Sanders (whose campaign site is powered by WordPress — HOT) is very well-loved in this state and he is someone who has always been against the war in Iraq and has always supported civil liberties and the intellectual freedom issues that most librarians care about.
So while I was rather annoyed that Bernie voted for DOPA, I understood that he probably did it because of the title of the bill and the timing. Perception is everything. It’s things like this that have our elected representatives voting the wrong way on really bad bills.
I especially enjoyed the ads about Bernie trying to ship foreign drug dealers to Vermont and his “anti-sportsman” votes that also happened to be anti-crime and pro-environment. How dumb does this guy think Vermonters are?
I hope Vermonters really show Rich Tarrant that negative campaigns like this will not be tolerated in our state. No matter where we live, we should demand intelligent debate, not pandering and ridiculous misrepresentations of the truth.
