Louise Slaughter has released two ads. The first one was a positive take on jobs and sunk without a trace. The second one was a “negative” ad and got her a bunch of press, including this typically well-done 13WHAM piece by Sean Carroll, which, again, shows that the ad is accurate.
But, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing better than Bob Lonsberry’s sputtering, meandering column yesterday. Reading it, I wondered if I was reading his take on the race or his effort to show that he’s a big enough drama queen to replace Tyra Banks on America’s Next Top Model. Here’s a prime example:
Because Louise Slaughter has shown her true colors.
After years of playing the role of the sugary-sweet southern grandmother, she has thrown this race into the gutter with the unleashing of a torrent of attack ads.
In order to understand this, you need your Lonsberry decoder:
| Bob Says | Normal People Say |
|---|---|
| Torrent | A few sprinkles, if it’s weather, or one advertisement, if it’s politics |
| Gale | A little breeze is ruffling the trees |
| Flood | There are puddles in the street and your feet might get wet. |
| Armageddon | Snowstorm of more than 6 inches. |
The rest of Lonsberry’s column is similarly ridiculous. He claims that Slaughter has done nothing for Rochester. What a Member of Congress can “do” for a city is always open to a great deal of interpretation. As far as I can tell, Louise “does” what someone with her level of power and seniority can do for Rochester. A couple of recent examples are working with Schumer to get financing for Hickey-Freeman, and putting an amendment in the Defense Authorization Bill that allowed Harris RF to get a $400 million contract. Anyone can do what Bob does in that column, which is to pick two random projects where “there oughta be a law”, but it takes a special brand of Lonsberry brass to generalize from two projects to “Slaughter does nothing”.
One final point: Bob’s burns about 900 words bemoning the awful state of this race, telling us how desperate the Slaughter campaign is, etc. He claims it’s unfair to blame Brooks for what happened while she was County Exec, but like every other press outlet in Rochester, he wasn’t able to call those ads innacurate, because they aren’t.
I am still new to the Rochester area after over 10 years. Does the fact Lonsberry still has a show here say more about the community than it does about him?
WHAM 1180 seems to support itself by mainly airing right wing talk shows so I guess that says something about Rochester. But most media markets can support a right wing radio show, so I don’t know if we stand apart from anywhere else.