Welcome to Silly Season, when our intrepid public servants—and those who aspire to be—dominate our TVs with ads, clutter street corners with yard signs, press the flesh while we’re trying to enjoy breakfast at our favorite diner, flood our mailboxes with flyers, and go online to ask us for money.
As your modest—yet much-beloved—servant, I am duty-bound to cut through the noise by analyzing the promises made by candidates for every office in both parties. Have pen and paper ready.
Without exception, all of them will: lower your taxes, reduce crime, shrink the size of government, create jobs, stand up to powerful special interests, fight bureaucracy, secure our borders, take care of our veterans, improve education, and fix Medicare. Go ahead—write it down.
As they seek our votes, none of them will resort to attack ads—unless, of course, their opponents force them to by running attack ads first. Then, golly, they have no choice.
I ran this by Junior E. Lee, general manager of the Yarbrough Worldwide Media and Pest Control Company in Greater Garfield, Georgia.
Junior isn’t just one of the most respected media analysts around—he’s also a pest control professional, something neither the folks at Fox News nor The New York Times can claim. If you don’t believe me, call Sean Hannity or David Brooks and ask them how to treat Rhipicephalus sanguineus. (That’s a dog tick, and topical treatments with permethrin tend to work.) Now you see why Junior is in a league of his own.
Politics is a blood sport, and it can get mean. But even by those standards, the race between businessman Rick Jackson and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones for the Republican nomination for governor has gotten especially rough. It’s gone well beyond up close and personal. Junior says it reminds him of the time two bulls got loose over at Arveen Ridley’s place and tore up the pasture, locking horns to prove dominance.
They were trying to impress the cows watching. I assume Jackson and Jones are trying to impress us. I suspect there’s a better way.
Nothing captures Silly Season quite like a recent ad from State Sen. Greg Dolezal (R-Cumming), one of several candidates running for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor to replace Jones.
In the ad, Dolezal stands next to a cutout figure wearing a hijab and strapped with explosives, warning that “they steal our elections, hate our way of life and want Sharia law,” before asking, “You want jihad against America?”
He then urges viewers to “blow up the system because you save America by saving Georgia.” I may be going out on a limb here, but that doesn’t sound like a job description for Georgia’s lieutenant governor. That’s a federal matter. Perhaps his consultants should reconsider the message.
Then there’s what may be the corniest ad of the season, courtesy of State Sen. Steve Gooch (R-Dawsonville), another candidate for lieutenant governor. Gooch promises not just to cut taxes but to throw them into a wood chipper—demonstrated by tossing in a pile of logs—while also asking supporters to “chip in” to his campaign. Yes, really.
Gooch also criticizes “weak-kneed bureaucrats” for government spending.
That’s interesting, considering his stance during the debate over mining near the Okefenokee Swamp. At the time, he argued that such decisions shouldn’t be made by politicians but left to regulatory agencies. The irony speaks for itself. One almost imagines that woodchipper sinking into the Okefenokee’s black waters—perhaps becoming an alligator’s next curiosity.
The good news: Silly Season ends in November.
The bad news: another one begins in 2028.
Junior E. Lee reminded me that this is part of democracy. As irritating as it can be, he says, it still beats dealing with barn flies.
He may be right.
But sometimes, I wonder.