Going Negative, Part One: Sadly, Yes!

It’s high time that we let a poorly kept secret out of the bag: Negative campaigning works like a charm. Sure, the politicos in DC won’t tell you that on the record, but it’s truer than Spandau Ballet.

If you don’t want to take our word for it, you don’t have to—just ask Michael Dukakis. That poor bastard received such a savage Willie Horton-ing that our spellchecker doesn’t even recognize his surname. Man, that’s harsh; perhaps it’s so tough that his wife will take to the bottle.

Anyway, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” bring up our little nugget of wisdom regarding negative campaigning for a particularly good reason. As everyone hip to Al Gore’s World-Wide Web must know, we’re up for the vaguely prestigious “Best Humor Blog” award for the “2006 Weblog Awards,” and we need as many people as possible to vote for us each and every day.

As anyone with a pulse would have guessed, we find ourselves a bit outgunned at the moment. Sure, we’re doing a tad better than last year. But, if we recall correctly, we were beaten like a Saudi Arabian wife in the earlier contest.

Accordingly, dear reader, we have decided to play a little electoral hardball. If we can’t exhort you to plump for us, perhaps we can compel you to stay away from the polls altogether. To mangle Harold Arlen, it’s time to accentuate the negative, eliminate the positive, and do something-or-other to the in-between. You get our drift.

In today’s humble “post,” then, we’ve decided to take aim at one of our competitors. Since a “weblog” called “Sadly, No!” is currently in first place, we figured that we’d start with it. (Of course, we when say “is currently in first place,” we also mean “is the only lefty ‘weblog’ amongst a sea of right-leaning ‘websites.’” That is a sure-fire way to success in the “Weblog Awards,” as anyone who can say Jesus’ General can attest.)

Now, we must say that the folks at “Sadly, No. 1” have very much helped us out with our intended excoriation. In fact, we think we’d have a hard time ridiculing these folks, since they seem so taken with unintentionally ridiculing themselves. Take, for instance, Wikipedia’s description of the “weblog,” which its authors have seen fit to reproduce on their “site”:

The site’s main running joke is in finding embarrassing slips or untrue statements by conservatives and linking to a refutation, saying, “Sadly, No!” Other running gags include posting pictures of conservative columnists on Internet dating sites, battling with a “singing troll” who sends homemade songs deriding the site’s contributors and commenters, and doing line-by-line putdowns of columns by Christian evangelists and other right-wingers. Sadly, No! also occasionally publishes phony columns at right-wing sites, and engages in other pranks.

Hysterical, is it not? Boy, that “Sadly, No!” gag must be a real knee-slapper. But wait: It gets even better:

Current contributors include site founder Seb, a French-Canadian financial analyst living in Germany…

Ah: That’s the secret to the success of “Sadly, Beating Us”: French-Canadian financial analysts living in Germany are always side-splittingly hilarious. Talk about an advantage. As if that’s not enough, the fellow’s name is Seb. Seb, for crying out loud! You might as well paint a mustache and goatee on the chap. Would you like some clove cigarettes, Sebastian?

Well, that certainly accounts for “Sadly, Winning’s” impressive performance thus far. But, since it is unlikely that the other candidates are named Seb, we think we still have a fighting chance. So, dear reader, go ahead and vote for us!