You're An Idiot, So Vote For...

THINK!

DON'T THINK!

First of all, this is a true story, it happened last night. 

My wife got home from a trip to Phoenix after a consultation with her doctor.  She had been gone for 2 days and was pretty tired, so I made her dinner (Am I a great husband or what).  It was shrimp pasta Alfredo with brussel sprouts.  

Since she had not been here on Friday, she didn't have a chance to watch one of our favorite shows on television, which is 'Shark Tank'. If you have not seen this show, it is basically a venture capital reality show.  Contestants that want to grow or start a business come before a panel of real millionaires/billionaires and pitch their idea in hopes of getting an investor.  Sometimes the panel (the sharks) makes an offer to the contestants, but more often than not, they rip into them for being idiot entrepreneurs. The show is similar to a college level business class, if you don't do your homework, the professor sends you home with an "F". 

While watching the show on Hulu I noticed something a bit odd.  Hulu is a subscription based channel similar to Netflix, but they have short commercials inserted into the programs.  These commercials are actually targeted toward the demographic area of the viewer, so you will likely see commercials for local business. I assume that this is done based on the zip code that I have to provide to Hulu for my subscription to their service.  We know this because for the past three months we have been inundated with negative campaign adds for the two candidates running for the house seat for southern Arizona.  But not this time.  Which got me wondering.  Why not? 

I surmised that the political parties might be 'targeting' specific audiences with their campaign adds and the audience for Shark Tank (people that actually think) wasn't one that they could influence with their negative advertisements. So as a test, after 'Shark Tank', I pulled up one of our guilty pleasures on Hulu, which is Tyra Banks train wreck of a reality show "America's Next Top Model".   If you have not seen this show (which is in its 21st season) it is about shallow vapid 20 somethings that base their entire existence on how attractive and pretty they are.  You assume that most of these contestants would have trouble tying their shoelaces or balancing a check book. 

At the first commercial break in the show, there was a negative campaign add for one of the Arizona candidates, and they just kept rolling in one after the other after that. 

Conclusion?  Well, the political parties in this country (the huge political action committees [PACS] that have spent over 12 million dollars so far on this one race) don't think that they can influence those of us that watch "Shark Tank", but they believe that the minds of 'America's Next Top Model' viewers are as malleable as Play-Doh.  I am certain that they have statistical data to back this up.  

This is a sad, sad day for the American political system when the parties find ways to only target the stupid people with their campaign adds.