Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Political Advertising

The advertising put out by political candidates is unlikely to represent a good use of money, public or private. It might be effective in helping candidates win. It might be a complete waste of money. The sheer annoyance created by mailers, phone calls, and television ads might overwhelm any perceived value. I don’t really know about any of that, or at least I don’t really care. One thing I am fairly certain and care about, however, is that political advertisements have little value when it comes to assisting voters in making logical decisions at the polls or anywhere else. These advertisements play to anger, fear, and jealousy. They do not appeal to reason or logic.

To illustrate how little value these advertisements have for voters who feel like relying on reason and logic rather than fear and anger, I will examine a mailer that found its way into my mail box. This one is for Republican Mike Fitzpatrick, who is trying to reclaim the Congressional seat he lost to Patrick Murphy four years ago. It might, however, have been from any candidate from either party.

I’ll start by examining the layout. This mailer has two sides. The good side has a photograph of Mike Fitzpatrick. He is wearing a Polo shirt and smiling against a soft and fuzzy back ground, and angelic glow around his head. The bad side has a grainy picture of Patrick Murphy in a suit, mouth open in conversation. His picture is placed leaning to the outside frame. Some of the font on the bad side is blood red. This is designed to make you feel comfortable with Fitzpatrick and angry or afraid of Murphy, and has nothing to do with issues.

Both sides of this advertisement contain claims. There are four bullet points on the good side. The first is: “Mike Fitzpatrick will fight to end Patrick Murphy and Nancy Pelosi’s spending spree.” This tells us very little. Nancy Pelosi is not running for this seat, and we know nothing about this “spending spree.”

The second bullet point reads “Mike Fitzpatrick opposes all efforts to raise our taxes.” This appeals to a primal fear of taxes. It has little basis in reality, however. He opposes all efforts to raise taxes? Every single one? It doesn’t matter why? Most of us, when we take a deep breath and think about what taxes can be used for, would be willing to pay higher taxes in at least a few scenarios. Most of us will also concede that anyone who tells you that he or she opposes all of anything is stupid or thinks you are stupid.

The third bullet point gives us this gem: “Mike Fitzpatrick will protect our children by reducing the national debt.” “Protect our children?” Where did the kids come in? Is Murphy’s goal to massively and permanently increase debt in order to harm future generations?

Finally, the reader is left with this: “Mike Fitzpatrick supports policies that keep our jobs in Pennsylvania.” What policies would these be? What jobs? Is Murphy trying to move jobs out? How?

The bad side continues where the good side left off, but does it with more drama. There is still little real information and plenty of fear mongering, but now some of it is done in blood red. And the bullet points are gone, replaced by blood red check marks. Around these check marks Murphy is called “Liberal Patrick Murphy.” Calling someone a Liberal is about as instructive as blood red font when it comes to telling people about someone’s record, views, or anything even remotely substantive. It plays on people’s conceptions of Liberals, and on their own fear and angry.

The first check mark is as close as it gets to substantive: “Liberals Patrick Murphy and Nancy Pelosi voted for a trillion dollar Stimulus Plan that has failed to create jobs and stimulate the economy.” It would be interesting to know what they mean by “create jobs” or “stimulate the economy.” It would be nice to know what Fitzpatrick’s plan is. It would be nice to know why we are resorting to name calling.

“Since Liberal Patrick Murphy took office, our national debt has grown to 55%, to 13.4 trillion.” Is Liberal his first name? Was he the only one in government over that period of time? Wasn’t there a Republican President for his first term? Wasn’t Fitzpatrick the guy who came before him?

“Liberals Patrick Murphy and Nancy Pelosi voted for the government takeover of healthcare that will raise our taxes by over $500 billion.” Liberal is a common first name, apparently. Does everyone think of it as a “government takeover”? What makes it a “government takeover”? Is $500 billion going to be billed just to me? Is it the only estimate? Over what period of time? In the absence of the health care reform, what would the costs be?

Lastly we get this gem: “Liberals Patrick Murphy and Nancy Pelosi voted for 1.2 trillion in new spending in the first 50 days of this Congress.” They probably spent every dollar by themselves. Just the two Liberals. It doesn’t matter what it was spent on. Doesn’t even matter if it was actually passed, just that it was “voted on.” What does that really mean?

The bottom line is that lots of money is spent in order to make us angry and afraid, no money is spent to educate us on issues or positions, and this set of circumstances sucks.

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