Are presidential campaigns in other countries as stupid as in the US?

Great Debates
1

From the SF Chronicle

This is a question for Dopers outside the US: Are elections in other developed western-style countries as stupid as in the US?

That is, do candidates blatantly lie about each other, or is the lying at least a bit more nuanced?

Also, do they focus on stupid issues about the candidates that have nothing to do with the candidate’s ability to perform in office?

Finally, do the media just sit back and mindlessly re-iterate each side’s attacks on the other, or do they provide some sane reporting on the issues?

If it is the same everywhere, we’re all doomed :mad:

2

We’re in the midst of an election campaign here in Ireland (for local government and EU representation) and yeah, I’d say a lot of it is pretty stupid. The media are the worst of all.

3

In Canada we don’t vote directly for the Prime Minister, we vote for the party representative (Member of parliament) that runs in our neighbourhood riding.

That said, yes there are some stupid attack ads occasionally. One time the conservatives in power made fun of the Liberal candidate, poking fun at his facial oddities (He had one side of his mouth drooping a bit).

The Liberals won, and the Conservatives were reduced to 2 seats and never recovered. This was more to do with the unpopularity of the previous prime minister than the ads though… hehe :stuck_out_tongue:

4

In the UK (parliamentary, not presidential elections) there appears to be an unspoken agreement not to stoop to the depths of US campaigns. Certainly, a negative message is fair game but if taken “too far” it will likely backfire (giving Tony Blair demonic eyes in the “New Labour, New Danger” campaign did the Tories no good at all.)

Certainly, adverts which incorporate patriotic power chords and superimposed flags or, conversely, dark sinister synth-sounds and disturbing monochrome images would simply be dismissed by most here as crass, vulgar pandering to the lowest common denominator and vote for the other party.

5

Well, TV campaign ads are not allowed here, so we get none of that particular brand of idiocy - pols are reduced to talk-show appearances, where they do get grilled.
Having said that, there was quite a bit of print/poster negative campaigning , but I’d have to say no, given the situation in the OP, we are nowhere near as stupid in our electioneering as the U.S. or, it seems, some other countries

6

Actually, MrDibble makes a good point - here also one cannot simply make a political advertisement to be slotted in any commercial break. Each party has only a specific number of “party political broadcasts” and restrict much of their campaign to posters and newspaper ads. This certainly stops the cost of the campaigns ballooning to the enormous, practically plutocratic levels of campaign spending in the US.

7

I’ve never been entirely convinced of the effect of money on capaign politics, at least on the high-profile campaigns, myself. And remember that the money, at least on the Republican side, comes from many small donations by people of limited means. So its not clear there’s a plutocracy running the election.

And hey, isn’t great to keep the advertising business running! :wink:

I’ve heard that many elections in even democratic states (read: Ireland) are fairly corrupt. Any dopers want to clue me in about this?

8

It does get silly but I’ve never seen anything like US campaign ads over here.

Party political broadcasts do go negative every now but nothing to the extent of some of the current ads I’ve seen from the States.

9

What do you mean by corrupt? Maybe in the past but I can’t think of anything major. Any hints to what you’re talking about?

10

For those who understand German or just enjoy the images, here is an archive of TV ads from the 2002 (most recent) parlamentary election. Since neither the Chancellor nor the “Senators” are elected directly it is the federal election.

http://egora.uni-muenster.de/deinewahl/wahlvideos_2002.shtml

Unfortunately it lists only the five biggest parties. In Germany like other countries TV and radio campaign ads can’t be bought. They are allocated based on “importance” - more or less past results, overrepresenting small parties. This gives us gems produced by the “Grey Panthers” (senior citizens party), “Feminist Party: The Women” or “Natural Law Party” (yoga-flyers.) After all, the little detail that your spot was filmed with a camcorder doesn’t mean that you can’t run it in prime time for free :slight_smile:

11

Depends on your perspective I suppose. From mine, the comments emanating from McDowell, Richard Bruton, the Sunday World and the Sindo are on a par with anything I ever saw in a US campaign.

12

John Bruton not Richard.

And smiling bandit, while several Irish Governments have been pretty corrupt I’m not aware of any accusations of stolen elections. At least not in this part of Ireland.

13

I don’t read either so I wouldn’t know.

14

I suppose most countries face stupid mud flinging campaings… American campaigns are more idiotic due to the weight given to certain religious, moral and patriotic “standards”.

Few people overhere would care about a lover for example. An illegitimate child is a bit more controversial and might hurt and did hurt candidates… especially if she wasn’t given financial support. Military service was never an issue.

Due to the excessive number of presidential candidates things only get really ugly here in the second round when there are only 2 candidates… that is when the rhetoric gets a bit nasty. In the past though to play too dirty and accuse to freely has hurt the attacking candidate.

The TV programs of some smaller parties are absolutely ridiculous here... and the bigger parties have "content free" rhetoric. Nice but nothing to show for it.
15

No political ads on TV or radio here, either, as I recently explained in a thread about parties funding. Only airtime granted for free on public broadcasted medias. I strongly suspect it prevents us from hearing a lot of crap, but not knowing what an american campaign would look like, I couldn’t compare the quality (or lack thereof) of the arguments used.

And here too we have the “flying yogis” party (for readers who would wonder, the general idea is that as soon as enough people will have learnt how to levitate, all problems will be solved, universal peace will be achieved, etc…).

Though they’re probably right. I too suspect universal peace will be achieved when yogis will fly.

16

IMHO I’d have to say that the 1997 UK Parliamentary elections, what with some truly bizarre party political broadcasts from the Conservatives, Labour, and most of all the UK Referendum Party (did James Goldsmith smoke crack right before he filmed that? scariest thing I’ve ever seen in an election campaign…) had to come close to anything I’ve ever seen in the US. Of course, I wasn’t stateside for the 2000 elections…and the 1997 UK elections had always shaped up to be a knockdown, drag-out, Election for the Future of the Country. I suppose the US 2004 elections will far surpass it in stupidity.

17

I suppose stupidity in the UK elections has mainly, but not completely, been taken over by one of the lesser parties
Not that I object to it, some politicians do take themselves far too seriously.

/

18

I think one factor in the parliamentary system is that it’s not all about the leaders, as Paul Martin is finding out here in Canada. In the presidential elections, it can get much more personal, because you’re running on your own record, and attacking the other guy on his own record. Things like military service (or lack of it) and personal voting record take on a greater role.

In a parliamentary system, the leader is very important, but the party is also a major factor. Case in point: Paul Martin. He seems to have thought he could run almost a presidential campaign: “I’m the leader of the Martin team. Forget about all those Chrétien policies.”

Well, no, Paul, you’re not a new guy on the scene with no connexion to the past. You’re the new leader of the Liberal party, which has been in power federally since 1993 and is facing an ugly financial scandal over how public money was spent. It’s the policies of the Liberal government over the past 11 years that people are interested in, not your fancy new Prime Ministership. And by the way, what were you doing as Finance Minister during the time of the spending in issue?

So my personal reaction is that the parliamentary system forces a greater debate on the platforms of the parties and reduces the personal attacks on the leader - not out of a sense of parliamentarian virtue or anything, but because personal attacks are not as effective as they might be in a straight race between two individuals.

Since I’ve been voting, I can remember two very personal attacks on candidates on two candidates for Prime Minister. The first was during the televised debates in the 1984 election. The Leader of the Opposition, Brian Mulroney, was hammering the new Prime Minister, John Turner, for making a series of patronage appointments that the outgoing Prime Minister, Trudeau, had promised to various party faithfuls, but hadn’t had time to do himself. Turner responded by saying he didn’t have a choice because he had to honour the promises of the outgoing Prime Minister. Quick as a flash, Mulroney pounced with “You had a choice, sir. You could have said No.” Sure, it was a direct personal attack on Turner, but it was attacking one of his decisions since becoming PM, not things in the distant past. It was one of the stand-out moments in the election that swept Mulroney to power.

The other personal attack was the one that BrianJ mentioned. In the 1993 election, the Conservatives (still in power) ran a very personal attack advert against Chrétien, the Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Chrétien literally talks out the side of his mouth (the result of polio as a child, I believe, which left some facial paralysis), and with a heavy French accent. The advert showed a series of close-ups of Chrétien’s mouth, with a smarmy voice-over about how can you trust someone who talks out of the side of his mouth? Chrétien responded with a dignified statement to the effect that he had lived all his life with a bit of a handicap, did his best to overcome it, and didn’t really think having a minor physical handicap would prevent him from leading the country. The Tories went from majority government to two seats out of ~300 in the Commons. Now, there were a lot of other things going on as well that contributed to the election results, but it did make the Tories look like nasty cornered rats.

So, attacks on the PM’s policy choices, and what they reveal about him/her, are fair game and likely to be useful, but true personal ads can easily backfire, at least in our system.