Like nearly everyone in the country, I’m sick of the negative advertising that permeates campaign season. Around here, they started running early, with the Moveon ads. In today’s Daily Press, op-ed writer John Miller offers some suggestions for making the ads go away:
- Require candidates appearance in the ads. “If they want to call their opponent names, the choice is theirs, but voters would see them doing it.”
- Ban 527s. “If a group, or a political party, wants to support a candidate, they should do it financially“
- Have TV stations band together to produce a program in which the candidates are allowed to state their case for election. “The local media have no higher responsibility than to help citizens participate in our democracy by presenting candidates’ views on the important issues of the day.”
- Limit the amount of money in campaigns. “If you limit the money, you also limit the number of commercials.”
Of all of his proposals, I like the first one the best. Negative advertising is here because it works. While I wish that every voter took the time to look for the truth, I know that is unrealistic. The only way to diminish their effect is to have the candidates actually in the ads, and not just in the tagline.
I don’t expect that we are going to see 527s banned any time soon. What I would like to see is the elimination of the provision which prohibits candidates and these 527s communicating. Forcing the candidates to appear in all ads, including those paid for by 527s, would go a long way towards reducing the trash that clogs up our airways and mailboxes.
As for limiting the amount of money in campaigns – I just don’t see that happening. Miller’s idea – that 75% of a candidate’s money should come from those who live or work in the district – is, in my opinion, too beneficial to incumbents. Except for public financing of campaigns, I don’t know how we limit the amount of money being spent. I do know that the increasing amounts needed to run for office are eliminating some very qualified people from the process.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Vivian:
I think you need to distinguish between negative campaigning and mud-slinging. A candidate challenging an incumbent has no chance of winning unless s/he attacks the incumbent’s record. To win you have to convince the voters that the incumbent has done a terrible job. If all you say is “I’m a nice guy, vote for me,” you’re going to lose.
Mud-slinging is different. You are going after your opponent using questionable facts and decade’s old statements to convince the electorate that s/he should be a political pariah. That’s the kind of stuff we need to control. Of course, any controls on what 527s or individuals can say does raise First Amendment issues.
I would love to go back to the good old days, in which you won elections by going door-to-door and convincing your neighbors that they should vote for your candidate. I would love to see a reinvigoration of the parties. I would love to see campaigns run by local people rather than political hired guns who really couldn’t care less what is good for the electorate, as long as they get paid.
(Hey, I’m wasting good stuff I can put on my own blog)
How about requiring that an equal amount of money paid for the ad gets paid to the local, state and federal treasury? In other words, if $25,000 is spent to run an ad on TV, another $25,000 gets sent to the state government tax revenue office, $25,000 to the US Treasury, and $25,000 to be split (via proportional census figures) among all communities that can see the broadcast signal (or get the newspaper delivered, or can hear the radio ad)? If we must endure negative ads, at least we will get the benefit of reduced debt, or an increase in local civic spending (schools, roads, senior centers, etc.).
You are correct, Bert. I should have said “mud-slinging.”
And I also have to agree that campaigns should be run by locals.
“A candidate challenging an incumbent has no chance of winning unless s/he attacks the incumbent’s record. To win you have to convince the voters that the incumbent has done a terrible job. If all you say is ‘I’m a nice guy, vote for me,’ you’re going to lose.”
You should see what Deval Patrick did in Massachusetts. Sure, in debates and on the stump he criticized the current Republican administration, but none of his ads were negative.
Now, he wasn’t technically running against the incumbent, but his opponent was the incumbent Lt. Governor running as a Republican, and Republicans had won the Governor’s race each time since 1990.
If you want to go back to the “good old days” of door to door, you’ll need to start with more representatives and smaller districts. The size of the House of Representatives has been fixed since 1920; the number of people each congressman represents has tripled since then. Most state legislators have gotten further away from their voters at about the same rate.
Kevin Drum, the Washington Monthly blogger, recently pointed out that the only thing worse than negative TV ads is positive ones. He was commenting on the ads Barbara Boxer was running in her walkover race in California, which were basically content-free soft-focus shots of her with the dog and grandkids. As Drum said, at least in negative ads there is *some* discussion of issues.
What it’s really going to take, I think, is some creative thinking by political ad writers, and risk-taking by the candidates they work for. Cutting through the clutter with a clean message that says something in an attention-getting way is hard work. If someone can prove that it can be done, then it will catch on and good messages will drive out bad.
I have to say that knocking on doors was my favorite part of campaigning. (I knocked doors for 3 hours M-F and then for about 6 hours on Saturday.) But Randy is right – there is absolutely no way that a candidate can knock on as many doors as there are voters. My race was city-wide, in which there are more than 105,000 registered voters. Even accounting for just households, you’re looking at about 70,000 doors. That’s an impossible feat. So mass communication is about the only way to go. But, of course, mass communication means money.
I don’t think that positive ads have to be all mushy, though. Positive ads can be about where the candidate stands and what the candidate intends to do if elected. I still think mail is a better vehicle than 30-second ads. (Or even the 2-minute ones we were subjected to during this season.)
I do think that any solution is going to come from a locally run campaign. Like most professional communities, the campaign consultant world has groupthink issues that make it hard to come up with something new; “I don’t like negatvie ads either, but they work” sounds almost tape-recorded as it comes out of their mouths.
It’s going to require 1) inspired creativity; 2) a candidate willing to risk it all on something new; and 3) a convincing win that can be traced to the ad(s). Come up with a fresh approach that wins, and everyone will jump on board.
Yeah, the first amendment is a pain.
I fully agree with the first one!!
Vivian, are you actually saying that you want to silence some political speech based on what they say?
I’d like to see us TAKE BACK THE AIR WAVES THAT WE OWN…and do it another way…..Ban political advertising….Insist that the stations set aside time blocks a few times each week to air conversations with the candidates discussing issues together….so that we can see where they stand on the issues AND get a good look at how they handle themselves.
This would help with the whole concept of campaign finance reform. We need to take the money out of politics to end the corruption and allow some of our more talented and less wealthy people serve our nation in public office.
A candidate like Vivian Paige for example should not have to go into debt to run for public office.
This is my take…I’m sick of the corporate media making Billions using our airwaves for free and then making Billions on top of that just for political ads alone.
Buzz…Buzz….
We have to be careful becuase if you tell supporters the only thing they can do is give money, then where does it stop? Commercials? Signs? speeches? Appearences? Bumper Stickers? Rallies? Support Groups? Movie screenings (Even if they are lame) BLOGS?
Just because we don’t like what we hear, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said.
Great point, squeaky. Mosquito’s idea of panning political advertising would shut down Mosquito’s blog.
VIvian, I’m curious about your thinking that mail is a better vehicle than television. It’s so easy to ditch what one perceives as “junk” mail without ever absorbing more than a few syllables of it; it’s far less easy to miss a 30 second ad that keeps popping up everytime you have the television on – which, these days, is pretty much all the time people are home. Are the comparative costs the difference, return on the dollar spent? How is that measured?
A good mail plan will get out the candidate’s message. It takes a significant number of pieces to engage the reader but it does work. The problem with TV is that a) it is expensive, even here and b) 30 seconds is not enough time.
My problem with TV ads is the mudslinging. It’s one thing to attack an opponent’s record – and that certainly should be done. But quite another to virtually make up stuff – OK, lie – and put it out there. I suspect a requirement that the candidate appear in the ad and make the accusations himself/herself might just cut down on that kind of advertising.
Then again, maybe not. Some politicians are willing to do and say anything to get elected.