Double Dipping Pension Padder

Thank God this is the last day I’ll have to hear about a double dipping pension padder and all the other politicians I can’t vote for anyway.

We don’t have an election in Delaware today. Yet because we live so close to Philadelphia, we are in the same media market and have to hear all the commercials about the people running for office in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. So we get all the annoyance of campaign commercials without the benefit of choice.

What have I learned while having the TV on first thing in the morning and while doing the dishes? Oh, a whole lot about neighboring candidates. I’ve learned that Steve Sweeney pads his pension twice and wants people with Down syndrome to have jobs. (This seems like a pretty non-controversial position. Like, is the other guy opposed?) I learned that liberal (GASP!) Phil Murphy wears a tuxedo and wants to raise everyone’s taxes to expand the government like a bloated tick, I assume just for the hell of it and not to provide more services or anything. I learned that Suzanne Fizzano Cannon (or whoever) is related to the family whose cement factory I drive past occasionally. I learned that that judge in the snazzy purple and yellow judge’s collar is not a typical Republican. I learned that Kim Guadagno is forever linked to the closure of both a bridge and a beach.

I know political ads use sleight of hand to bend the truth a little but some of these ads really don’t pass the smell test. One ad said that a politician had voted to RAISE YOUR TAXES something like 154 times. This seems impossible to have happened literally. Over a four-year term, was there really a vote on taxes an average of every nine days?

I wish there were a way for Delaware viewers to opt out of these on the ground that we don’t care and can’t affect the political process in our neighboring states. We have two senators and one congresswoman here. We have three counties, one congressional district and one area code. Leave us alone.