Senate Candidate Attacked Over World of Warcraft

[Xanthious]

I'm a Conservative and even I think these attacks are pretty pointless. There are a lot of successful people that play WoW. Hell, when I was working 200+ days a year on the road WoW was pretty much the one thing I could point to that kept me sane.

I have a few guys on my sales team that play as well. One guy started playing as a way to spend time with his boy and his wife while he was on the road working. Admittedly it's not the same as being there in person but they get to spend a couple hours a night gaming together and talking over Vent. It's something. The other fella is in a pretty massive guild and on his downtime will go visit and hang out with people from his guild when he's in their area on work.

Sure there are some people that take it too far but there are also a lot of people out there that games like WoW do a lot of good for. All in all I think it's pretty silly attacking someone over their hobbies. It would be no different than attacking a politician for playing golf or boating or some such thing.

 

[The Great JT]

Hell is politics, man...

 

[Aeshi]

Dunno what's sadder, that this is the best reason to hate her they could come up with, or the fact that it seems to be at least partially working.

 

[UberNoodle]

Ohhhhhh ferfuckssake! Does a politician play video games like millions of other Americans who do your taxes, invest your stock, fly your planes, fight for your country, cure your illnesses, etc? Oh, don't vote for her, she might confuse her games for the real world and kill a tonne of people. If not, she will just play games in meetings and duck others to play more games. You can't trust a gamer because they play games -- an industry so profitable that it rivals home video for profit. Scum of the earth, all of them. If they want a fantasy world full of magic and violence, there's the Good Book.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I'm not surprised that the Republican Party has done all of this, but it's kind of sad and funny at the same time. Still, do they not realize how many people play WoW? Sure it may dissuade some voters, but it may encourage a lot more.

 

[Pandabearparade]

The Republicans said something stupid?!

You don't say! I am completely shocked by this!

/sarcasm meter explodes

 

[miketehmage]

I do have to question how the republican party actually gets any voters ever? They seem like a bunch of close minded dumb asses for the most part.

Could an American explain it to me please?

I think they cut taxes alot though right?

 

[PunkRex]

Be a real Orc Colleen and stick an axe in his gob!
LOK'FUCKING'TAR OGAR!

 

[IamLEAM1983]

That's just mind-boggling, really.

Democrat Candidate: "I'm relatable! See, I've even got a Level 85 Orc for DPS in World of Warcraft!"
Sane Folks: "Yeah, that's relatable, alright. I've got a Level 75 Orc myself and I'm in Maine!"
Republican Candidate: "SHE PLAYS GAMES WHERE SHE KILLS FAKE PEOPLE FOR REALSIES! PANIC WITH ME, DENIZENS OF MAINE, FOR SHE IS HANNIBAL LECTER WITH A VAG!"

The "Deaths Per Second" comment is hilarious. If you want to see DPS in that sense, drop a low-level toon in a high-level area and then set your cat on the keyboard for a while. You'll sure die a lot.

 

[hickwarrior]

Not surprising this thread blew up the way it did.

But this mudslinging is just stupid. Isn't there supposed to be a job where you get voted for? You know, one where you promise good policies and the like? So that a whole goddamn nation isn't going to be the laughing stock of the world?

All I'm asking is just do your jobs properly.

Anyway, whoever said the comment that he believed in the 'deserving poor', what does that all include? Intelligent kids that are being picked on for no reason? Anyone with a mental and/or physical handicap that they need help with? Does that include those kind of people?

 

[neverarine]

yeah! my state i think i know whose gonna get my vote now... lol....

 

[Callate]

One message calls for a fairer tax policy in the U.S. before concluding that she may need to find conservative activist and Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist and drown him in her bathtub.

Also: As others have pointed out, although specifically attacking for the WoW thing is wrong, some of the things she says aren't exactly what you want to hear from an elected official: Wanting to drown somebody in a bathtub? Even as a joke, that's not the sort of wording I'd like to her from somebody I'm voting for.

In case anyone is missing the context of this post (and possibly thinking Ms. Lachowicz is threatening to murder anti-tax activists), possibly Mr. Norquist's most (in)famous comment is "I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I'm not American but this just makes me like her more.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I thought that right wingers loved politicians who claim to enjoy aggressively cutting things.

 

[tangoprime]

I've got to go ahead and voice my disapproval as well, I can't really see someone in politics spending time on World of Warcraft.

I mean, doesn't she know Guild Wars 2 is out? *badum-TISH!*

But seriously, find me a candidate for an executive position that's also an elite EVE Online player and I will vote for them as hard as I've ever voted before.

Haha, fully agreed on that last line. Though, if they're that good in EVE, chances are they don't need your vote, they've already got a plan in play and things are moving along exactly as intended. If you've been into EVE politics for 5+ years, you pretty much qualify as Evil Genius. It's the only online game that I feel is a relevant topic of review when getting a security clearance or background check, lol.

 

[tangoprime]

One message calls for a fairer tax policy in the U.S. before concluding that she may need to find conservative activist and Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist and drown him in her bathtub.

Also: As others have pointed out, although specifically attacking for the WoW thing is wrong, some of the things she says aren't exactly what you want to hear from an elected official: Wanting to drown somebody in a bathtub? Even as a joke, that's not the sort of wording I'd like to her from somebody I'm voting for.

In case anyone is missing the context of this post (and possibly thinking Ms. Lachowicz is threatening to murder anti-tax activists), possibly Mr. Norquist's most (in)famous comment is "I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

There is a bit of a jump from a size comparison mentioning drowning of an abstract concept to naming a specific human and saying they need to be murdered.

Also: Falterfire, I didn't quote it, but your first post in this thread is probably one of the best posts I've ever seen related to politics on the Escapist forums. Thank you, from a Texan in the same political position-

A few years ago, I moved from a Democrat controlled eastern seaboard state that was actively killing jobs in my sector via overtaxation to a state that seemed to be doing everything it could to draw business. After arriving, I learned that the backwards redneck stereotype was the farthest thing from the truth and I'm happy to live in the 4th largest City in the US, and one that happens to have elected an openly gay Mayor.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I thought that right wingers loved politicians who claim to enjoy aggressively cutting things.

Just had to give you some points for that, also, a post way back earlier, that stated their country didn't allow slander.

Meaning you could only concentrate on the good things you were doing, rather than, what seems to be the ONLY political ads in the US, attack ads.

Attacks ads just destroy democracy, as they leave people, especially the young, depressed about the whole process and believing that both/all parties are useless liars.

What angers me most of all, however, is when the attacks are based on stupid shit that has no bearing on his politics or ability to hold the position.

Stuff like 'She played WoW' or 'he likes to dress in rubber and fuck pensioners in the ear', it doesn't matter, so long as they're breaking no law.

Of course, most of all, it's depressing that everyone has to pretend that they're Christian to get elected in the US, and rumours of other religions are considered a valid argument.

 

[Falterfire]

You state that the views of the party don't reflect the majority of its members. Well if that is true, you and the dissenters should outnumber those people and thus, in a democratic system, be perfectly capable of voting them out. You don't have an excuse, you can't blame "popular stupidity" if intelligent dissenting Republicans comprise a majority of the party as you claimed is the case. You should be perfectly capable of uniting and reclaiming the party's common interests.

Unless you're going to change your story now and claim that you're not a majority, in which case I guess life is just tough all over and you'll have to deal with the stereotypes associated with your choice of party, just like the Democrats have to. Personally I'm just tired of hearing people whine about being labeled for their political affiliations. *You* choose the company you keep. Choose wisely and stop whining. >_>

In either case, your party is stupid to use this as an attack. Like so many other incidents across the country, these things will continue to bite you in the ass bit by bit. You and yours really need to fix things internally.

My sarcasm was entirely on the point:
You are suggesting mobilizing enough people to reshake an entire party. Do you know what happened the last time anybody tried that? The Tea Party. And once more, the media nabbed the craziest, threw them up, and the currently voted in people were more than happy to throw everybody who represented a possible threat to their position under the bus of public mockery. Now the Tea Party is a punchline, known only for the people they would rather not have associated with in the first place.

It's easy to say "Rise up and reshape your party!" It's damn near impossible to actually do no matter how many people are actually interested because the level of organization, funding, and time required to affect anything on a national level is insane.

Seriously, let me know if you've got a plan for how I would go about doing this. If you have a plan, I'd love to hear it, but stop telling me "well you should just get rid of all the idiots in your party and take over" as though that were something I could do over the weekend and just hadn't thought of it yet.

You'll notice I haven't criticized your party at all. There's a reason for that. I have no interest in getting into policy debates. You have no reason to believe I have any idea what I'm talking about and I have no reason to believe you do either. That was never my point.

My point was that the media flocks to the idiots because serious plans are boring. When was the last time you saw a news article with a serious point by point unbiased walkthrough of a candidate's plan for fixing the economy? Not soundbites such as "$X of taxcuts" or "$X of budget cuts" but a serious point by point discussion on national news? Whereas every week we get a story like this one that says "XYZ politician did something retarded let's laugh at them."

We all believe parties are run exclusively by idiots because that's all we hear about. If you think it's only Republicans who get these stories it's because you automatically dismiss the ones about Democrats doing similar things as one sided or distortions. We all as humans have a brain that wants us to go 'yay' for things we support and ignore or disbelieve things we don't. It's part of the reason I as a Republican launched this discussion here instead of on an article about how that guy in New York banned supersized drinks and it's why you never see anybody change their mind over internet discussions despite one guy obviously being the voice of reason.

 

[Apollo45]

Obviously the WoW thing is ridiculous, but saying that she wants to find a real person and drown him in her bathtub is mildly disturbing. I'm sure we've all said things like that, but then again none of us (to my knowledge) are running for political office, and those that are tend to keep those thoughts private.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Couldn't care less that she plays WoW, but she has a weird semi-creepy posting style. Honestly, who says stuff like "oh....and I can kill stuff without going to jail. There are some days when this is more necessary than others"

:Shepard video:

As a side note: I really reallllly wanted to see a quest in ME3 where Shepard gets taken to court for claiming multiple stores on the citadel are his favorite.