One week to go until the damn election and it can't come a moment too soon. I've had it up to HERE with the constant barrage of ads. I swear I see Meg Whitman about 10 times an hour and I'm happy to hear whatever "Megmentum" there was has evaporated and it looks like she's going to lose. That was $160 million well spent.
The ads for the local races have only really started ramping up in the past couple of weeks due to the cost of buying ad time in California. That, and the fact they're run more as a reminder to vote than anything else. They're remarkably meek, but that's because there's really no contest here. Kern County is so overwhelmingly Republican that the outcome is pretty much already known. What few Democrats are running avoid mentioning their party affiliation like the plague, and more than a few trot out a string of proud Republicans to vouch for just how un-Democratic they are.
All the real fireworks, locally speaking, came back before the June primary when all the Republicans candidates tried to out-crazy each other to get the nod. Once the roster of lunatics was set it was pretty much a done deal.
Two things have stood out to me about the local races, at least as far as they've played out on TV. Take the ad above for Andy Vidak, who already looks corrupt before even taking office (I'm sure that will come).
"Farmer for Congress"
Is this really a selling point? Unless he's planning on planting cotton between the aisles of Congress I fail to see how being a farmer is superior preparation for elected office. But it must work here because he isn't the only one using this tactic. At least he had the good sense to stay off the tractor, which can't be said of a couple of other candidates.
The other thing I've noticed is almost every single candidate here vows to fight for "OUR FAIR SHARE OF WATER!" The whole idea is both arrogant and dubious. Our fair share of water? That would be about "zero". The central valley is a desert; Bakersfield only gets about 3 inches of rain a year. The only reason is has an agriculture industry is because over the past century they've built canals to steal the water from the Sacramento delta. Using that same logic I should be able to walk into a bank and demand my "fair share" of the money, but I somehow doubt the cops would find that a convincing argument.
