An Internet Resource

My goal is to look at his election up close, not through media.

I discovered there is a great deal of difference between seeing an event live and seeing an event on TV, even the bare bones TV of CSPAN.   I had to experience it to understand it.   It makes my actually going to the events worth the effort.

Example:   If I had seen the Dorchester, SC event of Ted Cruz on TV I would have thought the campaign's co-chair hijacked the event by taking the microphone for the last few minutes to ramble on with Bible stories when Cruz had a political job to do, people to convince and motivate.   But being there and feeling the response of the crowd (engaged and into it,  not restless) I realized that in fact the opposite was happening.

The Cruz campaign was cementing a relationship between religious voters and Cruz and the campaign co-chair, Ray Nash, wasn't wasting time one bit.   The difference between Cruz and Trump (with the unbelievable rookie mistake of referring to the Bible book as "Two Corinthians. . . " ) was made apparent.    Cruz is a real Christian, Trump is not.   And in fact, Trump is worse than someone who is unschooled--he is pretending.  Of course many people are put off by Cruz's overt mix of religion and politics, and prefer the light informal hypocrisy and for-show religiosity of Trump.   They want a president, not a righteous theocrat.  So Republicans get a choice, and Cruz cast his lot with the active evangelical churchgoers.

Readers in New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina don't need to be told this but readers everywhere else do:   the TV you are watching is very, very different from the TV in those early states.   Back in late September when I was first in New Hampshire I quickly tired of TV commercials on the cable news shows I monitored between events.   It was wall to wall political commercials.   And I like political ads.  But Jeeze, ad after ad after ad.

Think how the people in those states must feel.   Overwhelmed, sick of it, and harassed.

Same deal in South Carolina last week.   Most of the ads on TV are political ads.  Ad after ad of emotional manipulation.  Many of them follow a pattern:  ominous trouble in America with dark music, then glimmer of hope as the candidate emerges, then bright morning sunshine with happy music and tensions resolved.  Elect whomever, now. Civilization is in the balance.

You sort of have to be there, trying to watch CNN and FOX and MSNBC to understand the oppression of constant political advertising, but take my word.

Since most of us cannot take time to be a political tourist, I want to give a resource for looking at the commercials closely.   It is not the same as seeing them randomly on TV, but it is way better than nothing:

http://www.p2016.org/ads1/paidads.html

The website www.p2016.org in general, of which the above address is a section, is an excellent resource but I found it easiest to get to the ads by bookmarking the URL above and going right to the ads.   Of course you can also bookmark my site:   www.peterwsage.blogspot.com    

And better yet, put your email address in the box there in the upper right.   Then you will get an email every day or so when I post.

Here is a hint.   Look for the little ">" sign next to the ad title and click it.   It brings you right to the video ad itself.   It is tiny and you might think to ignore it, but don't.   Look closely.  It is at the far right of each line.   It is the instant way to see the ad.