It’s the best thing ever to count the number of campaign ads shown during a commercial break. I definitely care about the seemingly trivial, but vitally important, miniscule details of each candidate’s history, especially when brought up by a rival. I adore watching ads repeatedly in the same sitting, or better yet in the same commercial break. Finding new things in the incredibly non-monotonous display of perfectly true facts every time I watch an ad is amazing.
Sense my sarcasm?
According to Frontline, a division of PBS, there are two types of political ads: express and issue. Express ads are subject to restrictions on the donors who give the money to fund the ad and how much an individual donor can give. They can be identified as ads that explicitly support a candidate.
However, different rules apply to issue ads, which are supposed to deal with political issues rather than candidates. Money used to fund these is not under the same scrutiny as express ads, meaning that campaigns and Political Action Committees (PACs) can spend as much money as they want on them from whoever they want.
These laws have recently allowed the amount of political ads to spike. The result is the endless onslaught of attack commercials that never specifically say “magic words” expressly promoting a candidate. Because of this loophole, Americans are being subjected to more commercials than need be. Ad after ad repeating each candidate’s shortcomings and failures can even do damage to the candidate who the ad supports instead of helping it.
I’ve overheard conversations about how not being able to skip a candidate’s ad on YouTube really affects people’s opinions. Not that most of these people can vote, of course, making the barrage of ads all the more pointless.
The way to the heart of Americans is through a few ads here and there, enough to make a candidate stick in their minds but not drown them in commercials. That’s what I really adore.
For more information on issue ads and express ads: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/scandal/etc/ads.html
