A Word to the Wise

I saw a political ad yesterday that piqued my curiosity. The Dem candidate for Governor from Philly, Tony Williams launched a negative attack ad against our own homegrown Dan OOOOOOnorato. The add was whatevs, but one particular “statistic” struck me. Tony Williams claimed that unemployment in Allegheny County had grown 30% in the last year; outpacing the rest of the state and country!

That would be about the most depressing statistic in the world, if it were true. (Before I go there, this isn’t a pro-Dan post or even really a pro-Allegheny County post, this ad is more of a vehicle to aid me in arguing a point)

Problem is it takes about 2 seconds of “research” to disprove this point. Type “Allegheny County Unemployment” into Google and this is what you get. In a nutshell, our unemployment grew 2%, not 30%. As a matter of fact, if you notice on the graph, unemployment in his district is slightly higher (for Philadelphia County, Delaware County almost mirrors Allegheny).

Whatever, I’m not going to get into the Philly vs. Pittsburgh thing, or say that I think Dan Onorato is awesomer than Tony Williams. My point is that the ethical standards for political commercials are ZERO!!!! It’s not about presenting facts about the opposition, it’s slanting the information to get you votes. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this, when you look at the way most politicians operate, and Mr. Williams is far from the only culprit.

What’s worse and probably scarier than lack of integrity from these commercials and their creators is that people may base their voting decision off of these commercials.

If you base your voting off of these commercials, then do me a favor, don’t vote. It took yours truly 30 seconds on the internet to fact check a commercial and find out what was wrong and what wasn’t. Do me, and everyone else a favor, if you plan on voting, do your homework; do more than watch commercials; find out which candidate really will represent you best.