Elizabeth Kilbride
Opinion Editor
Jeremy W. Peters recently wrote an article for the New York Times headlined “92% of Ads in Florida Were Negative.” Exhibit A was an ad by the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future, although I’m not sure this is a corner of YouTube you want to visit. Jane Mayer also wrote about negative advertising in a New Yorker article about Larry McCarthy, who helps direct Restore Our Future; the article was called “Mitt Romney’s Attack Dog.”
But I don’t intend to criticize Romney more than anyone else. After all, Restore Our Future is supposed to be independent of his campaign, and he’s been a victim of negative advertising himself. The third-most broadcast television ad the week before the Florida primary asked if Romney could be trusted (and implied he couldn’t), and then after a bit of music Newt Gingrich approved the message. I’m not going to take a side as to who is worse, because I’m still trying to figure out why we aren’t arguing over who is better.
The predicted spending on television ads during the Presidential race is two billion dollars. This will be about 70% of all the money raised by candidates and their PACs. I’m not here to pose the question about what else this money could be used for. What I’m really curious about is how ads like this are so effective. If they weren’t, they might be amusing. It’s tempting to ask what kind of a candidate needs to rely so heavily on tearing down an opponent, rather than focusing on their own platform. But since that kind of candidate seems to be just about every candidate, the real question might be why are viewers so affected by them?
Negative ads often aren’t about policy. They’re about people. “This candidate is wishy-washy, or rich, or stupid”. I suppose that’s the one credit the American people are given. We care about character; we care about decency; we care about family values, or at least about how many wives a man has had. What seems unclear is whether or not we care about what legislation has been supported by who – or whether we’ve been given the chance too understand who has done what.
This is all kind of presumptuous. It’s not like there aren’t debates to watch. In fact, there have been a record number of debates. Candidates are interviewed on news shows. But the politics is, I think, far more saturated by these ads than by unbiased reporting. The average American, myself included, will see what they’re shown.
If I learned something from Lord of the Flies, it’s that democracy is not an easy form of government. It requires participation from all parts, and on our part I think that means a little more research, a little bit of work. We can’t expect what we see to be fair, when 92% of ads in Florida were negative. We might not even be able to expect fairness if 92% of ads in Florida were positive; an ad is an ad after all. What we can expect is that we will be asked to vote, and before we do we could educate ourselves beyond family values and a bit of music. We can’t change that negative ads make up the majority of what we watch. We can, however, look into their claims, and come to a decision on our own.
