Bad Ad

I was a little startled (just in time for Halloween!) by a full-page ad in today's Republican-American. It featured a poor-quality photograph of Jarjura surrounded by an assortment of Rep-Am headlines, some of which read along the lines of "Mayor is criticized", while others pertain to issues like condo projects and WDC (I suppose there's no point mentioning that the mayor doesn't run WDC--it has a board of directors that includes one of the Independent party's Aldermen). The ad implies that Jarjura is yet another corrupt Waterbury politician, which really isn't fair. I can't say that I agree with everything he's done (but since does anyone agree with everything?), but Jarjura is nothing at all like Waterbury's infamous corrupt politicians. I suppose mudslinging and casting aspersions are a standard practice in politics, but I still don't have any respect for it. I prefer to be given reasons to vote for candidates, not reason to fearfully vote against them. That just leaves me not wanting to vote at all.

If all of that weren't bad enough, it actually took me some effort to figure out who ran the ad. In relatively small print, at the bottom of the page, the ad encourages me to vote for Odle. There is one positive statement, in which Odle (I assume--it's not clear who is making the statement) promises that his economic development plan will benefit only the people of Waterbury, not his administration (which doesn't really make sense, but okay).