Blood Bath: Political Advertising
CARTOON: Ed Stein. Rocky Mountain News. 2006
Over the years it seems that whenever there is someone running for office there is commercials that slander everyone who is running for the position. Political advertisement campaigns have turned into who can make the other person look more flawed than they are. Political campaigns no longer focus on the issues that the community is facing, but instead focus on who can win the popular vote.
The reason that every campaign turns to a popularity contest is because of advertising.
Advertising is a very powerful tool that many people have used to get their issues and opinions seen. Along with that many people have used advertising to expose personal problems and to discredit their competitor’s names to make them look better. Since advertising is such a powerful resource for any campaign it makes me wonder if there should be regulations put on how campaign ads can be used.
CARTOON: The News-Herald. Oct. 24, 2010.
The 2008 campaign for President of America is one the of the best examples of how advertisements can be used as a weapon against a candidates opponent. Romney, Obama and McCain all focused on cutting each other down and criticizing past events. Organizations contribute to the mass amount of attack ads as well. This new form of personally attacking candidates started mainly in the 1990’s as a way of making one look more qualified than the others, but attack campaigns have always been a part of our history says PoliticalCampaign.com.
The new attack ads that started being used came out of needing a new way to get candidates seen by the general public. The first televised political campaign was in 1952 with Eisenhower against Stephenson. After that all presidential campaigns have had televised advertisements/debates. What changed from then to now is that back then candidates talked about what they wanted to do if they were elected, but today most of the candidates talk about what the other candidates did wrong.
VIDEO: Famous "Daisy" Attack Ad from 1964 Presidential Election.YouTube. October 30, 2010.
John Geer put together a website dedicated to the Attack Ad Hall of Fame which depicts some of the best and worst attack ads in U.S. History. The most famous attack ad aired in 1964 for the presidential election of President Johnson which was named "Daisy Spot". Attack Ad Hall of Fame says that the ad was suppose to scare the public into voting for Johnson because he would keep nuclear war from happening to America and it worked. The "Daisy Spot" attack ad opened the flood gates for all the rest of the attack ads that followed.
I do believe that political advertisements are a key component in today’s campaigns, but I also think that they should focus on what the candidate is doing right instead of what the other candidates have not done right. Political advertising is a great tool to get candidate’s message out to the public and keep them informed. Ads are also used as weapons to attack other people and make the general public feel like they cannot trust any of the people running for office.
The issue of trusting potential candidates is getting harder and harder because instead of advertising how to fix the issues they focus on personal issues. Most people in today’s world do not trust anyone in government. Every aspect of their personal lives is taken out of context and made to seem more important than things like the economic downturn. All that these attack ads seem to be doing for candidates is making people not want to vote and hating their government for not focusing on the real issues. Doesn’t it make more sense to fix the government’s problems instead of trying to fix personal problems as an elected official?
Some of the Attack ads that have been produced in recent years slander candidates for personal things like illness and beliefs that do not pertain to a person’s potential government position. I have found a couple of ads that do just that. Bradley Byrne, a GOP candidate, was made fun of for believing in evolution. A GOP senate candidate for California, Barbara Boxer, was depicted as a “demon blimp” that was planning on terrorizing California. These attempts to make fun of people for things that do not pertain to a candidate performing their duties in office are the new way of bullying people into power. I believe that everyone has skeletons in their closets and everyone has something to hide, but that does not mean that people cannot take on responsibility.
CARTOON: Sineitc. Philadelphia Daily News. April 4, 2010.
Candidates no longer have to worry about what issues they want to change, but rather what clothes they wear. The public no longer bases their voting decisions on what government problem can be fixed, but how much they like the candidate as a person. Since many people never meet their elected official the main concern should be on how well the job is done and not on how the official looks when they do it.
This issue of attack ads in advertising has become a serious problem that can only be fixed with regulation and an end to name calling. It seems like political ads are the only ads that are not regulated. Government problems and challenges are fixed by doing the work and not by talking about how much better someone is then another. To increase votes and get the public back into making the government work for the people we need to put an end to political beauty pageants and start focusing on how officials can help the government.
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