'Stock up on condoms': Campaign ads go for shock value in final blitz

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

WASHINGTON – Condom shortages. A drowning child. Drug-addled monkeys.

 

These are just a few of the topics tackled in the final batch of campaign ads being aired ahead of next week's elections, as political campaigns and allied groups push the envelope in pursuit of undecided voters and perhaps those who hadn't been paying attention until now.

 

The new ads run the gamut from the creative and charmingly offbeat to the disturbing to the simply bizarre. In the final blitz before Election Day, many are going for raw shock value.

 

The largely self-financed GOP candidate who is challenging California Gov. Jerry Brown released a 30-second ad earlier this month showing a young boy drowning in a pool. As the boy flails, a message on the screen reads, “When kids in failing schools begged Jerry Brown for rescue, HE BETRAYED THEM.” The ad then shows Kashkari saving the boy and saying, “When I’m governor, I’ll fight for kids, not against them.”

 

The piece was panned by some political analysts. “For a political ad, it’s running on the outer edge of acceptable,” Barbara O’Connor, director emeritus of the nonpartisan Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, told a Sacramento television station.

 

But Kashkari says he “wanted the most dramatic image” he could find, adding, “I don’t think the ad goes far enough.” The Republican continues to trail far behind Brown. An Oct. 22 Public Policy Institute of California poll shows Kashkari trailing Brown by 16 percentage points, 52-36 percent.

 

One new ad raising eyebrows is from NARAL, a left-leaning pro-choice organization that is weighing in on Colorado’s tight Senate race between Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Udall and Republican challenger, Rep. Cory Gardner.

 

The ad suggests a vote for Gardner would lead to a birth control ban and a national run on condoms. It starts with a female narrator saying, “Guys, guys, guys, guys.” The video shows a man’s hand groping for a condom wrapper on a nightstand. “If Cory Gardner gets his way, you better stock up on condoms,” the narrator says. The commercial cuts to a couple in bed with the male frustrated he’s apparently run out of contraceptives.

 

The group is referring to a bill Gardner backed that reportedly could ban some types of birth control, but a recent fact check notes Gardner does not actually want to ban birth control.

 

The ad, promoted as “edgy” by NARAL, hasn’t been a home run with all voters.

 

“Ummmmmm, okay. Wait – what?” Lisa Carter, a voter in Colorado, told FoxNews.com after she watched the spot, adding that it did little to sway her vote. “It’s just weird and creepy, you know?”

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The final desperate hours.