Now that the primaries are over and the “real” election season is about to begin, I have been thinking about what aspects of the primary campaigns I found most irritating and bizarre. As I think about the political advertising to which we have all been subjected over the past few months — and how much more we will have to suffer in the next few — I think that two things in particular are worth noting.

First, I have to admit that I was truly amazed at the extent to which common political labels have truly lost their meaning. Who is a “conservative” or a “liberal” these days? I am thinking about a political advertisement that was run against Sen. Pat Roberts during the primary. The advertisement’s message was, to my mind, very strange.

First, the advertisement said that Roberts was not a ” true conservative” )as opposed to his primary opponent). I suppose that, perhaps, I simply don’t understand what a conservative is anymore (as some readers have commented in online responses to some of my columns), but I cannot by any stretch of the imagination believe that anybody really thinks that Pat Roberts is a liberal or progressive.

Indeed, the commercial in which this claim was made went on to say, supposedly in proof of Roberts’ abandonment of “true conservatism,” that he had been in the Senate when legislation like the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) had been passed. I think that this is no proof at all and is truly misleading. It is one thing to accuse a politician of having voted for legislation; it is another to say that the fact that he was in Congress when legislation passed is a sign of his politics. By that measure, Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are also not “conservative” politicians.

The other thing that I found bizarre was a series of emails I received from one candidate. For quite a while the emails were the standard “please give money” so that we can be elected. But as the campaign progressed, I also began to receive emails thanking me “for my support.” What was bizarre about this was that I hadn’t donated a penny nor done anything that could be interpreted as support. I should say that my lack of donations had nothing to do with how I felt about the candidate. It’s just that I don’t make political donations to primary campaigns.

So, I have to ask, why was I being thanked for “my support” when in fact I had given absolutely no support to the candidate? Since the emails all began with a personalized greeting using my first name (I assume this was so that I would think that they were actually personally addressed to me by the candidate), I suppose the idea was to make me think that the sender actually knew who I was and cared about my opinion. However, thanking me for support I had not given really made it clear that it was simply a mass mailing to everybody who could vote. Not a great move so far as I am concerned.

I know that this kind of silliness will continue through to the November election, but why candidates and others waste their money on such things will never cease to amaze and amuse me.