As a resident alien in the US, I don’t get to vote, or sit on juries, or various other stuff. And although it wouldn’t be illegal, I refrain from participating directly in US politics – I don’t contribute to or work for political campaigns, PACs, or advocacy groups.
Yesterday I was surprised and amused to receive an unsolicited piece of mail from the Bush campaign. It contained a letter, urging me (not once, but three times) to contribute “$1,000, $500, $250, $100, $50, $35, or even $25 today“. It spent more time blasting the spending of “hundreds of millions of dollars [by] liberal special interests” that it did actually talking about Bush’s policies and values. (And the policies weren’t particularly coherent: more “Cutting taxes”, not a word about the deficit, energy, or health care.) And it encouraged vandalism! The envelope contained a “W’04” bumper sticker which I was encouraged to put on my car “or that of a neighbor or family member who’s backing me.”
Compared with the up-beat Kerry-Edwards mailing that my wife received the same day, this Bush piece felt negative and threatened. Portraying the President as an underdog may be realistic, but (unlike us Brits) America seems to prefer winners. In this mailing, Bush certainly didn’t come across as a winner. And ranting about the “attacks” in Liberal “TV ads” is a bit rich, in view of the fact that media analysts rate the Bush campaign as the most consistently negative in modern history.
However there was one positive item: the letter concludes with the assurance that “This is my final political campaign”. Amen. And so this morning I compromised my principles (just a bit) by putting a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on my car. Hey, I can always say that one of my neighbors did it!