Campaigning... what a crock!

OK, so I am really getting on my horse (call him high if you want) and I am going to wave this flag!!

The theme in my prior post "Who is to blame", talks about the need to reform campaign ads. I stated that I feel that with some of the campaign ads, they are close to being abusive or could even be considered Cyberbullying. Well, I found a reference on wikipedia that has the definition of cyberbullying. I know that it states that it is adolescence that do it, but I am thinking that we are setting a bad example if we do it among adults and then expect our children to act any different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberbullying

Just this evening, I have counted the number of slanderous campaign ads just in 1 hour in the Sacramento, CA media area... the numbers are staggering (these were counted from 5:30pm to 6:30pm Oct 20.)

The sheer volume is unbelievable......

Number of political ads - 28
Number of Political ads considered to be a positive message - 5
Number of Political ads considered to be slandering of the opponent - 16
Number of Political ads considered to be neutral (proposition ads) - 7

In an article in the Daily Finance, an AOL Money and Finance Site, http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/political-ad-spending-TV-broadcasters/19644734/

"In total, TV station political revenues may hit $2.5 billion in 2010, a 25% increase above 2006"

This is not including the revenue that will be generated in Radio, Internet Ads, or for static advertising such as billboards, yard signs and vehicle ads.

Let's see, what can we do with 2.5 Billion Dollars... for this election time

• Helping our public education system: The average teachers salary (lets say for High School) is $43,272 rounded down to $43,000. (according to PayScale.com) Now double it for the 2 years they will be in office if they get elected. That is $86,000 in salary, of course there is other expenses, but let's just keep this as simple as we can. 2.5 Billion Dollars puts 29,000 more teachers to work in public schools, an average of 581 per state. The average student/teacher ration for the US is 16.2:1, (I know that it is a lot higher in some states like CA) so that would allow for another 9000 students to be taught in a state.
• Helping protect our borders: The average border patrol officer salary is $55,000, so that would put an additional 44,000 border patrol officers along our southern border to protect us form the onslaught of illegal immigrants coming in. If we just stationed them along the border with Mexico (which is our biggest problem right now, and I am not being racist, that is just the fact) which length is 1,969 miles, that puts 22 officers PER MILE. According to Globalsecurity.org, the proposed fence that would protect the southern border with Mexico could possibly be finished (using the low cost version fencing) with those funds, slowing the 400,000+ illegals from getting into to our country per year.
  

This is just two examples... I am certain there are many more that could be thought of. I say we put some legislation in place to limit the political campaign spending, and have the funds go for something good for a change.