Alternate title: "Yes, I'm a total Pollyanna"
What about ads that make no verifiable claims whatsoever, but cast a lot of aspesions. I'm thinking of ads that show Joe Politician's head next to Osama and Saddam while saying he is "soft on terrorism"
Not sure it would be feasible because it would be very easy to cast most greens and yellows and vice versa. Plus, a good ad wouldn't need to assert anything false in order to shape people's opinions;the little girl with the daisy didn't say anything.
Laudable sentiment, though.
And what if, instead of casting aspesions, they cast aspersions?
How would you color code this advertising campaign?
It's the aspersion-casting that I think is the worst. That crap should get, at a minimum, yellow. I'd like to see them get reds. That's what I was kind of thinking with the "unverifiable claims" thing.
Personally, I think we should just make political advertising illegal.
I dunno, though, what's truth? "An organization of Vietnam Veterans from the same boats Sen Kerry worked on has accused him of faking the documentation for his medals and killing children. You, the voter, must be his judge." That's all 'true' -- the accusations were made -- so what color is it?
I think Democrats should realize that the Republicans will totally smear them no matter what and should therefore bracket those fears and just vote what they think is best for the country. Or else they should realize that the Republicans hate them and consider them enemies and thus band together to work against the Republicans in every way possible.
But in no case should they try to act in such a way that the Republicans can't criticize them, because the Republicans can just as easily make shit up or slander you by claiming that the strongest part of your record is a total sham (viz. Swift Boat).
Or I cut the other guy out entirely. Shot of the Twin Towers. Shot of dancing middle-easterners (who cares if the footage is from a wedding). Shot of an apartment, someone's hands only, working over lots of wires with blueprints nearby. Fade to black.
'Fight terror. Re-elect [X].'
9 - I say that if it can't be substantiated, it gets a red or goes out unrated. Unless they can prove he faked the documentation or killed children, nothing higher.
But under the actual system we have now, which is not going to change, what should Democrats do?
14 might be just as much a fantasy as Becks' proposal.
There's a funny Santorum ad running now that shows a bunch of old white men with cigars in a back room somewhere. (I know it's a back room because they're political consultants and the room is filled with smoke.) The voiceover talks about a bunch of corrupt people who have given money to Casey. What's awesome is that the thing is almost completely false: most of the people portrayed gave money to Casey's previous campaigns, not his race for the senate, and most of them have given more money to Santorum's re-election campaign; furthermore, they haven't done all the things they're accused of doing in the ad. So it's wrong from start to finish. Sweet.
"Personally, I think we should just make political advertising illegal."
Who cares about the First Amendment, anyway?
17.--Also false because, really, where are you allowed to smoke inside any more? I mean, c'mon, a little verisimilitude, people.
Yes, those liberals are the ones who really want to restrict civil liberties.
Yes, but let's focus on the real issue here: what form would that icon take?
A cock, of course. Or would no one vote for a guy who has a green cock in his ads?
17 - I had Santorum partly in mind when I was thinking of this. I was shocked by how blatantly false his ads were when I was living in PA 6 years ago.
19 - Jail, apparently. I'm Rick Santorum, and I approved this message.
18: I have an old-fashioned idea that money isn't the same as speech.
Why not make the TV stations give the airtime for free. After all, the airwaves are public.
26 - That, too. I like the idea of only ads with a "green" designation being aired for free. Another incentive to run a clean campaign.
Indeed, and mandate equal time and while we're at it, let's require all television stations to devote at least an hour of prime time to news coverage uninterrupted by commercials.
Bitch- It's called putting your money were your mouth is, and I think that a pol should get some minimum number of donations to prove that he has support of real people.
19: You can smoke inside in Iowa, much to my shock.
Sure. Lots of public funding of elections proposals incorporate some good-faith fundraising; to get public funding you must raise $X dollars in $5 increments.
I would not allow 507's to have free airtime. Those guys should pay, as per my above.
I don't wanna run a clean campaign. No one listens to clean campaigns. They listen to nasty ones.
29: If the rule is he has to get donations, then presumably by "real" people you mean "people with disposable income," right?
I'm quite serious in agreeing with you, though: I do think that political elections should be publicly funded, and that news coverage should be mandatory and commercial-free (to deal with the replacement of actual news with celebrity stalking for the sake of ratings). I'm okay with the idea of a rule that a candidate has to be "serious" to get public money/airtime/whatever. Although I confess it would be really interesting to see what would happen if that weren't the case--would people still vote for the two major parties, or might we actually see some strange things happening?
I don't know how much money is wasted in the UK by funding the "looney party", and some of the other colorful sideshows, but if you qualify for the ballot, you could get airtime as allocated by votes in the previous election.
As for "disposable income", actually no. More people giving smaller amounts has been the Republican gameplan for the last few cycles, and it works.
It does, but still. And I really care less about "wasting money"--it's not like we don't spend plenty of money on shit like Happy Meal toys and Halloween decorations--than I do about having a meaningful public sphere.
And one more thing- in no way am I in favor of public funding of political campaigns. But the TV stations make oodles of money during the silly season, and I think that donating the time should be a cost of doing business for them, or no broadcast license. They can write it off their income tax.
The ad review committee gets stacked with Repubs, of course --- "moderate" Repubs --- and then bloggers bitch about how Dem ads never get the green cock.
And since I'm nattering on, what really bugs me about political donations is not that the wealthy have more access, because they always will. What really bugs me is that the pols sell out so cheap! Would you donate $100,000 or even $1,000,000 for a $15,000,000,000 contract? Of course you would. Go Porkbusters,
no way am I in favor of public funding of political campaigns. But the TV stations make oodles of money during the silly season, and I think that donating the time should be a cost of doing business for them, or no broadcast license. They can write it off their income tax.
Dude?
Difference of which way the cash is flowing- not a tax credit, per se. Or hell, no write off at all, I don't care, it's idle daydreaming anyway.
40: nice.
TLL, given that a system that allows the wealthy greater access is inherently unfair, what remedies would be acceptable to you?
"18: I have an old-fashioned idea that money isn't the same as speech."
This proves way, way, way, too much. Printing up flyers at Kinko's that say "Throw out the Republicans before they ruin the country" costs money. Paying people to stand on street corners and hand them out costs money. Mailing them directly to people costs money. Hosting Unfogged.com costs money. Are all of these to be banned once the money moves out of TV advertising?
Seriously - if there's anything that the 1st amendment ought to protect, it's the right to say "Vote the bums out."
"Not the same as" does not imply "is not required for." One may coherently regulate the amount of money that can be spent on speech without banning all speech that costs money.
The wealthyand the powerful will always find ways to help each other, if they are not in fact the same people. Sunlight and disclosure are the mitigating factors. But in a perfect world, the government would be less intrusive in our lives and in the economy, so the incentives to have friends in high places would be less obvious. Less rent seeking behaviour would be a net positive.
Yeah, you can regulate the amount of money spent disseminating political speech. But when someone suggests "just making political advertising illegal", to my mind that is fundamentally different from regulating the amount of money spent.
Saying that making political advertising illegal isn't a First Amendment issue because money isn't speech is seriously non sequitur.
Sorry, this is something that I take more seriously than most, for what I imagine is no very good reason. I'll drop it.
Nah Jake, I think you're right to a high degree.
It was a joke. It's impossible, anyway, but I honestly do think that the republic would be better off if we distinguished between speech and advertising.
What about true issue advertising? If I go round up a chunk of change and just take adds out denouncing the "All your non-citizen residents are belong to us bill" without saying who voted for or against it, or saying that people should vote against the people who voted for it. Better, what if I want to buy adds to discuss an issue not yet on the legislative agenda and about which neither party has clear views, but which I hope to get on the legislative agenda via the ads. The secular canonization of Tony Jaa for instance, or free pony's for everyone (though the latter is more likely a Dem issue, let's be honest)
How many factual inaccuracies are in this ad?
