LETTER: Truth in advertising in question

To the Editor:

I’ve got to hand it to those Republicans. They really know how to wage campaigns.

With the aid of Madison Avenue’s best and brightest marketers (those who lure us to buy pills that cause strokes and cancer, flashy cars that are no better than last year’s model, and credit cards we don’t need) they are pushing an inferior and hazardous product.

Since time began, leaders have emerged because fearful masses believed they would protect them from enemies, promote their well-being, and settle their squabbles. Some leaders, in addition to being strong, delivered on their promises. Think Britain’s Winston Churchill. Others rose to power by manipulation and bullying. Their own subjects came to fear them more than their enemies. Think China’s Mao Tse-Tung.

Which brings us to Wisconsin 2010. The nation was still reeling from the Wall Street crash of 2008. Folks were angry and scared. Scott Walker told us to be very afraid of the debt that past administrations had run up uncontrollably.

People who would not hesitate to take out a second mortgage to send their child to college were conned by the pitch that we have to pay off our state's debt RIGHT NOW or all future generations would be doomed. Playing on that rationale, Walker made drastic budget cuts, the deepest to education.

He is shorting the future generation right now by crippling their potential to earn high taxable incomes for the state’s coffers. But right now his big-money out-of-state friends are showing their gratitude for their tax breaks by showering him with $20,000,000 worth of slick, largely false TV ads designed to keep him propped up in office.

So, if you believe Madison Avenue’s happy talk about Walker, if you are into risky products, vote to keep him.

Buyer beware.

Ed Prell

Eau Claire

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion