Tuesday, October 21, 2008

HD-47: Commercials in Review

Valinda Bolton and Donna Keel have released their first television ads of the season, and as a public service, both are presented right here for your convenience.

Valinda Bolton (D, incumbent):



Donna Keel (R):



A constant among Rep. Bolton's ads appears to be the placing of blame for everything on Republicans. This time, she blames the Republicans for cutting CHIP. Let's see...CHIP's funding wasn't cut in the last legislature, it was increased to allow 127,000 more children to be enrolled. Would someone please remind me which party was in control of both the Legislature and the Governor's Office? Ah, yes, the evil Republicans. How dare they do this to...oh, wait, this was good for CHIP. Never mind...

Both candidates mention education. Good so far. Telling, though, is the manner in which they mention it. Ms. Keel wants more education funding to go directly to the classrooms, whereas Ms. Bolton just wants more education funding, period. Given that there are some districts in Central Texas which spend less than 45% of their revenue in the classroom, I would venture that something more than the amount of funding for education needs to change to improve schools.

One more thing: Ms. Bolton discussed acting like a grown-up. Unfortunately, she wasn't thinking that way when she assisted in delaying the consideration of all bills during the last legislative session (out of an apparent desire to embarrass Tom Craddick), thus destroying any semblance of efficiency and causing a time crunch at the end of the session. (To be sure, Mr. Craddick didn't help things either, but a vote seemingly designed entirely to embarrass someone is rather childish.)

My call on the two commercials: Both mention general policy desires. But Valinda Bolton's continued playing of the blame game makes for an inferior ad, in my opinion. Winner: Donna Keel.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Valinda's bio says she studied Psychology, but I feel pretty certain she at least got a minor in Creative Fiction. She tells us she is worried about the children, but votes against Jessica's Law which increased penalties and protections for our kids from sexual predators. She votes against giving our teachers incentive pay raises. I almost fell out of my chair we she started bragging about beating Terry Keel in 2006. Is her mind so far detached from reality that she doesn't remember running against Bill Welch and Yvonne Schick in 2006. Can she remember that far in the past? Does she know that she has never faced off against Terry Keel? For my money, I think her campaign is in such shambles that she sees no issue in simply making stuff up.

Anonymous said...

In this era of big spending, government waste, and out-of-control debt, we need to send an auditor to the legislature more than ever. Vote Keel.