I has been all over the news that close to $2 billion dollars was spent on political ads this year.
In Nevada, it was the usual slinging of mud on the political tv ads. I did have to laugh as it seemed this year, political ad designers learned how to use Photoshop, and the photos of the opponents were hysterically funny…I think they actually put a mole on one woman’s face and generally would try to make the other person look worse than the infamous Nick Nolte mug shot.
Still, as a hard core Dem, the money spent on those ads didn’t effect me one iota and were a waste of money.
Just wondering - were the billions spent worth it and did any of those ads sway your vote?
A number of them swayed me into believing that the candidate in question was a deceptive asshole. I read a couple of newspaper editorials repudiating the quotes attributed to the paper in some of those ads, and yet the candidate/committee continued to run the ad. For example, the ads against Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) claiming that she supports the Kennedy bill on immigrants and wants to give the illegal immigrants Social Security, complete with a cite from the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune stated that they never said that, that she supports the McCain bill, and that she never said she would give SS to illegals. Pity I’m not even in that district, so I can’t vote against the jerk.
I actually think that TV stations should fact-check every ad before running it. Anything with a misleading charge gets rejected.
For instance, they’re attacking the comptroller candidate here for using a state worker to give free car rides for his wife, a pretty serious (and true) charge for the guy who’s supposed to keep track of the state’s money. Any ad attacking that would be fine. But one candidate is attacking an incumbent for voting himself a raise eight times, when, actually, the raises are automatic and there is no vote. That shouldn’t be allowed.
I wasn’t swayed by any of the commercials, but I did get a few good laughs. Like the OP said, I did see a few with photos that were altered in a cartoonish way.
I think I would be swayed more by a person donating all that money to some charity, or using it to buy new school books/classroom supplies, but I don’t think they are allowed to do that.
Like others in this thread, I was only swayed negatively. My SO, who refuses to share her political views with anyone (a habit I am fast becoming an admirer of,) broke down and finally started speaking out against one local incumbent. The pol in question was one she actually admired - but partway into the campaign she asked “Why are all his ads mudslinging? Why is he saying all this crap that clearly isn’t true?” By today, she was determined to vote for the other candidate.
I started out ambiguous as well, and ended up voting against this guy for the same reason. I’m sorry to say I didn’t vote *for * the opposition, I voted *against * the incumbent. He asked for it, the sorry sack of poop.
I don’t trust a single word that these political ads say. Even in the rare cases where they aren’t deliberately lying or misleading, they address issues that can’t be condensed into a sound bite.
Months back, I was against Claire McCaskill. I’d voted for our current, idiot governor because I could not stand her as the alternative. Then Jim Talent and the National Republican Party bombarded us with the most relentlessly slimy ad campaign I can remember in recent elections. Pretty much evenly divided between attacking McCaskill for having offshore bank accounts and using tax loopholes, and trying to scare senior citizens that she’ll lock them all up in retirement homes to be abused.
Then the phone calls started – all prerecorded. And the mailings. It went on so long and so perniciously that by the time McCaskill started running a few negative ads, I’d already decided to vote for her just because Talent and his ad goons had pissed me off so much.
So, the money spent by Talent and the National Republican Party was well worth it. For their opponent. Way to go.
As a matter of principle, I completely ignore what any ad may have to say about the opposing candidate. I have plenty of sources of information about who’s running and thus ads are completely unnecessary for me to make a decision.
The one influence a particular commercial may have on me is negative; as others have said, I may vote against a candidate if I think his or her ads are unfair or, frankly, moronic. For example, I wasn’t particularly against Gov. Rick Perry of Texas until his campaign started bombarding the radio airwaves with a crappy rip-off of “real men of genius” that accused his Democratic challenger of being like…a French person. Whatever the hell that means. Sorry, you don’t get my vote if someone might think it came in on the back of the most egregiously stupid political ad I’ve ever heard.
So, there you have it, politicos: your $2 billion is mostly wasted. Just tell who they are and what they’ve done, and for fuck’s sake please please please cut the negative crap.
A long, long, long time ago, people running for office would reveal themselves to us in commercials. They would say who they were and what they believed in. Not empty platitudes, but realistic goals they could achieve for us as our representative, if only we would consent to vote them into office. They did their best to be humble and sincere.
I miss that, if only in comparison to the “my opponent is a deviant criminal” garbage they try to peddle nowadays.
I did not pay attention to a single political ad this year, so the answer is no.
Yes, the commericals running here in Illinois affected me to the point that I refused to vote for any of those silly bastards. Even the non mud slinging ones started to grate on me…
"As Cheif State Marble Player Cluricaun remained a wonderful part of his family despite his binge drinking (cut to smiling missing tooth child hanging on tire swing)…he even bought bumper cars for everyone who lives in his house, even the fat kids (cut to moderately attractive wife with Marilyn Quale hairstyle smiling quite warily) Cluricaun even ditched out of work early a few times to take everyone to Chucky Cheese (cut to Giant Smiling Rat with strategic kids)
“I’m Cluricaun, and I approve of this message”. (stands with entire family, all looking slightly scared)
Well no shit you approve of this ad. Has there ever been a positive spin ad where the candidate says “Hey, fuck this shit, I think this whole thing is putrid and I don’t want my family on TV! What does my record as Second Assistant Dog Catcher have to do with these poor people??”
Therefore I voted all third party. I vote for those who don’t feel the need to either trash the opponent or vault themselves up as Family In Picture Frame At Kohls.
One ad almost swayed my vote. Here in Michigan, an ad attacked State Senator Lauta Toy for missing something like 400 votes. Sounds like she’s a lazy slacker, right? Later, I found out why Ms. Toy missed so many votes. She had been taking care of her dying mother. Who can blame her for that? Once I discovered the truth, I was royally pissed at her opponents. Their ad was an archetypal example of half-truth being a complete lie. They were trying to make it look like Toy was just too lazy to do her job.
Thanks to the Miracle of TiVo, I haven’t seen a TV commercial in years. However, there was no way to escape the relentless “robo-calling” of House candidate Peter Roskam, and it did indeed effect me, as it convinced me to vote for his opponent, Tammy Duckworth (and convincing me to vote for a liberal Democrat takes some doing).
Unfortunately, Roskam won anyway, which will lead strategists to say, “Wow, that robo-calling was really effective. Roskam was one of the few Republicans to survive a contested race. We’ll have to do more of it next time!”
Given that my wife works for the DFL, no, the ads didn’t affect my vote any.
We did have a local ad that would have, though–a local Democrat was being blasted by the Republicans for voting against a Democrat bill that would have called for harsher punishments for repeat sex offenders. What they didn’t say was that the Republicans had introduced their own similar bill that worked better, was cheaper, and would be even harsher on sex offenders, and she supported their bill instead of her own party’s. Then they blasted her for it. Those ads, before I saw the news report that explained this, would have caused me to consider voting for the Republican. After I saw the news story that explained the situation, they have caused me to consider not watching any more ads and just voting DFL down the line, regardless.
No, beacuse all the ads I saw were for Wisconsin races, and I live in Minnesota.
(all the TV channels IU get are WI. Actually the antennas for most are in MN, and the ABC studio is in MN, but is considered a WI station)