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ENLARGE
Diane Williams
About this series
This week’s Opinion pages feature a project by Diane Williams, a writer and former Umpqua Community College instructor who lives in Winchester. In light of the coming election, Williams examines the various political parties and the values each represents. In response, some local residents have agreed to explain why they belong to a particular party. Finally, Williams takes a look at the many ways voters may be influenced by political advertising.
The purpose of the entire series is to encourage voter education in this most important election year. We welcome your reaction to this series and invite you to participate. In an ongoing part of the series, we will publish 300-word essays explaining why individuals belong to a particular political party. Essays may be dropped off at The News-Review, mailed, or e-mailed to Editor Vicki Menard at vmenard@nrtoday.com.
Following is the week’s lineup:
TUESDAY: A look at our two major political parties
WEDNESDAY: Minor parties and local residents’ political preferences
THURSDAY: Political advertising, part 1
TODAY: Political advertising, part 2
ONGOING: Local residents’ political preferences
— Vicki Menard, editor
The purpose of the entire series is to encourage voter education in this most important election year. We welcome your reaction to this series and invite you to participate. In an ongoing part of the series, we will publish 300-word essays explaining why individuals belong to a particular political party. Essays may be dropped off at The News-Review, mailed, or e-mailed to Editor Vicki Menard at vmenard@nrtoday.com.
Following is the week’s lineup:
TUESDAY: A look at our two major political parties
WEDNESDAY: Minor parties and local residents’ political preferences
THURSDAY: Political advertising, part 1
TODAY: Political advertising, part 2
ONGOING: Local residents’ political preferences
— Vicki Menard, editor
(First of two parts)
Looked at one way, the blitz of political advertising is flattering. No, really. We may as well put a positive spin on it because there’s no getting away from it. The fact is, your vote matters and every candidate wants it. We voters hold the election outcomes in our hands. We decide who will lead us. We say yea or nay to the measures put forth for our consideration. That’s power.
If you watch television, you’re inundated with politics. Politicians show up all day long, from early morning wake-up shows through late-night talk shows.
And all those ads! We are wise to be alert to those who spend billions — more than $3 billion on television ads alone, according to CNN — to influence us. These advertisers — candidates, public interest groups, private organizations — all have their own interests and motives, and some are more honest than others.
Smear Campaigns
Richard H. Davis, who ran Senator John McCain’s campaign in 2000, said this: Every presidential campaign has its share of hardball political tactics, but nothing is more discomforting than a smear campaign. The deeply personal, usually anonymous allegations that make up a smear campaign are aimed at a candidate’s most precious asset: his reputation. The reason this blackest of the dark arts is likely to continue is simple: It often works.
Too often, smear attacks affect an election outcome. Bob Papper of Hofstra University says, “Even distortions ‘corrected’ later have usually already done their damage, such as the Swift Boat Veterans campaign against John Kerry in 2004.” Many believe that the widely viewed ads cost Kerry the 2004 election.
Smear campaigns aren’t aimed at people who have already made up their minds because they don’t have much effect on those voters. Studies at Notre Dame and the University of Texas show that these campaigns do, however, affect their targets: undecided voters.
Internet Political Advertising
You might turn off the tube and turn to the Internet for a little relief, but there’s no escaping politics. Ads show up in banners along the top, bottom, or sides of Internet search engines, on e-mail, FaceBook, and other sites, even in our e-mail in-boxes.
Some of those ads come from political advocacy groups. Kate Kaye reports that the left-leaning MoveOn.org came up with a clever way to increase viewership of Obama ads: a TV-ad contest. They spent about $30,000 on video, standard display, and other blog ad units with this message: “Decide which Obama ad we air on national TV? Yes. You. Can.” MoveOn is one of many advocacy groups and so-called “527” organizations that can be expected to spend money to buy online ads before November.
Freedom’s Watch, a conservative “527,” placed ads featuring the face of General David Petraeus on news sites including Politico.com, Drudge Report, and RealClearPolitics.
Web ads reach vast numbers of viewers for far less than the cost of traditional advertising.
E-mail Political
Commentary
If you use e-mail, you’ve received “forwards” of political messages from friends and relatives. Many forwarded messages are urban legends — untrue stories that pique our curiosity, frighten us, anger us, or make us burst out laughing.
Snopes.com, one of several on-line fact-checking services, reports nine widely circulated e-mails focusing on Sen. McCain, of which three are true. Perhaps the ugliest e-mail states that McCain declared on “60 Minutes” that he was a “war criminal” who “bombed innocent women and children.” In truth, those words are from a statement McCain was forced to sign under torture in a Vietnamese prison camp.
Snopes.com reports 36 chain e-mails about Obama; only four of them true. Everyone has heard these lies: Obama is Muslim (he’s Christian), went to a Muslim school in Indonesia (it was a public school), swore in as a senator with his hand on a Quran (it was his family Bible), doesn’t salute the flag (he does), and snubbed troops in Iraq on his recent trip overseas (Obama visited troops in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Germany).
A particularly vicious mailing falsely implies that Obama is the anti-Christ supposedly described in the book of “Revelation[s].” In truth, the relevant Bible passage neither mentions an “anti-Christ” nor describes one. (To read the e-mail smear and the relevant passage from the Bible, visit snopes.com/politics/obama/antichrist.asp.)
All these fallacious e-mails end “Please forward to everyone you know.” Cheap advertising? You betcha.
Coming tomorrow: Sorting Fact from Fiction & Direct Mail Advertising; Phone Banks, Legitimate Polls, and “Push Polls.”
Diane Williams of Winchester may be reached at diane.y.s.williams@gmail.com
Looked at one way, the blitz of political advertising is flattering. No, really. We may as well put a positive spin on it because there’s no getting away from it. The fact is, your vote matters and every candidate wants it. We voters hold the election outcomes in our hands. We decide who will lead us. We say yea or nay to the measures put forth for our consideration. That’s power.
If you watch television, you’re inundated with politics. Politicians show up all day long, from early morning wake-up shows through late-night talk shows.
And all those ads! We are wise to be alert to those who spend billions — more than $3 billion on television ads alone, according to CNN — to influence us. These advertisers — candidates, public interest groups, private organizations — all have their own interests and motives, and some are more honest than others.
Smear Campaigns
Richard H. Davis, who ran Senator John McCain’s campaign in 2000, said this: Every presidential campaign has its share of hardball political tactics, but nothing is more discomforting than a smear campaign. The deeply personal, usually anonymous allegations that make up a smear campaign are aimed at a candidate’s most precious asset: his reputation. The reason this blackest of the dark arts is likely to continue is simple: It often works.
Too often, smear attacks affect an election outcome. Bob Papper of Hofstra University says, “Even distortions ‘corrected’ later have usually already done their damage, such as the Swift Boat Veterans campaign against John Kerry in 2004.” Many believe that the widely viewed ads cost Kerry the 2004 election.
Smear campaigns aren’t aimed at people who have already made up their minds because they don’t have much effect on those voters. Studies at Notre Dame and the University of Texas show that these campaigns do, however, affect their targets: undecided voters.
Internet Political Advertising
You might turn off the tube and turn to the Internet for a little relief, but there’s no escaping politics. Ads show up in banners along the top, bottom, or sides of Internet search engines, on e-mail, FaceBook, and other sites, even in our e-mail in-boxes.
Some of those ads come from political advocacy groups. Kate Kaye reports that the left-leaning MoveOn.org came up with a clever way to increase viewership of Obama ads: a TV-ad contest. They spent about $30,000 on video, standard display, and other blog ad units with this message: “Decide which Obama ad we air on national TV? Yes. You. Can.” MoveOn is one of many advocacy groups and so-called “527” organizations that can be expected to spend money to buy online ads before November.
Freedom’s Watch, a conservative “527,” placed ads featuring the face of General David Petraeus on news sites including Politico.com, Drudge Report, and RealClearPolitics.
Web ads reach vast numbers of viewers for far less than the cost of traditional advertising.
E-mail Political
Commentary
If you use e-mail, you’ve received “forwards” of political messages from friends and relatives. Many forwarded messages are urban legends — untrue stories that pique our curiosity, frighten us, anger us, or make us burst out laughing.
Snopes.com, one of several on-line fact-checking services, reports nine widely circulated e-mails focusing on Sen. McCain, of which three are true. Perhaps the ugliest e-mail states that McCain declared on “60 Minutes” that he was a “war criminal” who “bombed innocent women and children.” In truth, those words are from a statement McCain was forced to sign under torture in a Vietnamese prison camp.
Snopes.com reports 36 chain e-mails about Obama; only four of them true. Everyone has heard these lies: Obama is Muslim (he’s Christian), went to a Muslim school in Indonesia (it was a public school), swore in as a senator with his hand on a Quran (it was his family Bible), doesn’t salute the flag (he does), and snubbed troops in Iraq on his recent trip overseas (Obama visited troops in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Germany).
A particularly vicious mailing falsely implies that Obama is the anti-Christ supposedly described in the book of “Revelation[s].” In truth, the relevant Bible passage neither mentions an “anti-Christ” nor describes one. (To read the e-mail smear and the relevant passage from the Bible, visit snopes.com/politics/obama/antichrist.asp.)
All these fallacious e-mails end “Please forward to everyone you know.” Cheap advertising? You betcha.
Coming tomorrow: Sorting Fact from Fiction & Direct Mail Advertising; Phone Banks, Legitimate Polls, and “Push Polls.”
Diane Williams of Winchester may be reached at diane.y.s.williams@gmail.com
Important dates for voters
Deadline to register to vote: Oct. 14
Ballots mailed: Oct. 17 Election Day: Nov. 4 To register: Pick up registration materials at the Douglas County Courthouse, U.S. post offices, Oregon DMV offices, or online at www.sos.state.or.us/elections. If you have moved since you last voted or if you want to change your affiliation, you must re-register. If you are 17: You can register, but won’t receive ballots for elections until you turn 18. |
