So one of the ballot proposals for Colorado this year is Amendment 68, which would allow casino gambling at horse tracks (limited to one per county, but such limits are a lot easier to finesse once the camel's nose is under the tent), with a big chunk of the proceeds earmarked for K-12 education. And both sides have been trying their darnedest to alienate me, as a voter, with grotesquely insulting campaigns.<\/p>\n
The first ad I heard was Pro-68. On it, a kindly grandmother type admits that she doesn't care for gambling herself, but, heck, if other people want to have fun, at least the money is going to a good cause. It's not an implausible argument, but it's teed up as so annoyingly fake in presentation that it was a huge turn-off for me.<\/p>\n
(The video of the ad is marginally less worse than the radio version: http:\/\/youtu.be\/Jhc5nsoKPtM<\/a>)<\/p>\n On the other hand, the Anti-68 ad I saw next was amateurishly produced, full of black backgrounds and scary imagery and music, and used that whiny think-of-the-children woman's voice to cast doubt on how those proceeds would be spent (as if school infrastructure costs, vs instructional materials, aren't a worthy target of spending), and to accuse it all of being a fiendish plot by a Rhode Island casino company — which it might very well be, but so what? I despise spooky-music fear ads (whether I support the candidate \/ issue or not), and this one hits all those notes.<\/p>\n (Good samples http:\/\/youtu.be\/8WhZES6zyqk<\/a>, http:\/\/youtu.be\/Yy1Vv3L7VJE<\/a>, http:\/\/youtu.be\/NQCbsl6DaxU<\/a>)<\/p>\n Yesterday I pulled from the mailbox a flyer with a smiling kid at the family table and the big friendly-lettered message "Every child deserves the OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN," as mailed out by "Coloradans for Better Schools". If you read through the flyer, you'd see all sorts of pull quotes and glossy pictures and cunningly bolded text talking about how 68 (whatever that is) provides a steady, reliable source of school funding (yay!) without any taxes (yay!) and under local control (yay!). Somewhere, lurking in the text, is mention about how the money is raised, but, hey, the subsequent text makes it clear it's all VOLUNTARY (not like those nassssty taxes that evil politicians make you pay for schools).<\/p>\n It's a lovely cloud-cuckoo piece of campaign literature, that basically would have you believe that someone wanted to figure out how to improve our schools so Billy and Suzie can have fulfilling lives, and just happened to pick a funding source at random (DON'T LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN) which isn't at all important because better schools + no new taxes = JACKPOT! (wait, we shouldn't say anything about jackpots).<\/p>\n (This video is from the same organization and very similar in tone: http:\/\/youtu.be\/evuZx9GwNLE<\/a>)<\/p>\n So, based on that ad, I'm ready to vote No on 68, just on principle. But there's plenty of time left for the No-on-68 folk to up the ante and make me vote against them instead. <\/p>\n (A local news station delves a bit more deeply into the truthiness of the Pro-68 ads here: http:\/\/youtu.be\/HnJNspYnuyU<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n