Recently I have been overwhelmed with cynicism towards Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Living in Ohio we have been inundated  with political ads for these two candidates. What some may view as entertaining and thought provoking last week is extremely annoying after you have seen the same ad for the hundredth time. My son and I are so annoyed with the ads that we embark on impromptu parodies of the ads whenever they appear. I guess our parodies are pretty bad. My wife just grimaces. She does not share our sense of humor. I cannot overlook the amount of the money being spent by these two candidates so that they can talk about social change. They have this hypocrisy thing going on under this veil of ultra-competitiveness. The irony is that this political excess is detracting from charitable giving and “real” social change. This is not hard to figure out. Political contributions are discretionary spending just like charitable giving. I am guessing that Habitat for Humanity could have funded a new house for a needy family with the “excess” ads from just one news hour in the Cincinnati market. I try not to think about how big an impact this competitive campaign has had on charitable giving in the United States as a whole.

Finally I found a little creativity in this over-hyped campaign. Thank you Jack! I think I am doomed to get re-runs until Tuesday but this personal ad by Jack makes the campaign a little bit more tolerable.