Indiana’s Fifth Congressional District has just the substance free kind of political debate that everyone can enjoy. Wonkish debates about policy are for egghead elitists and are, therefore, best avoided.
Luke Messer, challenger to Dan Burton – a 28 year incumbent – revealed, one presumes with great sadness, that the actors pretending to support Burton in his campaign ads were not Hoosiers. They were Buckeyes. The horror!
The defense to this brouhaha seems to be, essentially: a) Burton doesn’t know what’s going on with his commercial; and b) it’s a common practice to pay actors to pretend they support you because your real supporters aren’t pretty enough; or are otherwise unpresentable on television; or something.
They’re bad actors, too. ;)
Well, yeah, but it really kinda also tells me that Messer doesn’t have much in his arsenal. No issues to discuss?
Perhaps burton does not have any actual Hoosier support? I am ashamed of my fellow Buckeyes. Messer always hit me as someone without much of a grasp on things. He relied on his aides to provide talking points that matched his party (mitch and bush) and seemed to not fully understand the issues or even his stance. That was education issues, perhaps he is sharper on other issues. But he was always a nice guy. But at least burton likes fruit salad, just has a funny way of preparing it. :)
Mike,
That may be the case but you can’t blame Messer for taking a swing when Burton put the ball on the tee for him. It would be irresponsible if he didn’t.
So, all of the other candidates were irresponsible? I don’t think so. I think the desperate one went negative soonest.
Actually Mike Murphy jumped on it too once he found out about it. Mike, I think you’re assuming that the other candidates knew they were Ohio actors and ignored it. I highly doubt that because they all would have taken a swing at that ball on the tee.
Getting information on something like this is not easy. You have to be absolutely sure lest you end up with egg on your face. It’s not as if the actors identify their hometowns in the ad.