Political ads

[Jimmy Higgins]

OMG! Ohio is a battleground for Senate and Governor, though the Senate race Renacci is floating at the top of the fish bowl. But Mike Dewine and Richard Cordray are battling it out, and Dewine's team or PAC or whatever came out with a brilliant ad that is so shameful, that they should win an award, before losing the right to ever advertise on television again.

"During the Strickland-Cordray era, taxes were raised by $800 million and Ohio lost 400,000 jobs...," says a TV ad by DeWine, the current attorney general. "Richard Cordray will raise taxes. Kill jobs."

For those unaware, Strickland-Cordray were elected Gov / Lt. Gov in 2006. There was a particular event that occurred between 2006 and 2010 that some might just remember. Yet, the ad is actually making a context free claim that Ohio lost 400,000 jobs and had blown a huge hole in the budget due to the Democrat leadership.

This is about as honest as having a woman then coming on and saying "In 2007, I was raped." then another woman saying "When Cordray was Lt. Gov, my husband got cancer." And finally "During Strickland and Cordray's administration, I lost my child in a miscarriage."

Ads like this should come with consequences.

From what I've read, there have been some pretty bad ads from Democrats as well across the country. It just seems that the context of neglecting to note that Strickland/Cordray didn't single handedly plunge the world into a global recession in 2008 seems about as false advertising can get, without actually saying a false statement.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, they should. However, that consequence should be the person making the ad loses and they’re viewed as an ineffective way of helping to win the election.

So long as you have a voter base which responds to them, you’re going to get them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Ya, they should. However, that consequence should be the person making the ad loses and they’re viewed as an ineffective way of helping to win the election.

That is quite libertarian of you to say.

Sure, the consequences of selling a drug that actually harms the user will mean people stop buying it. This is the real world, not some flight of fancy liberal utopia where people seek out truth.

 

[dismal]

Ya, they should. However, that consequence should be the person making the ad loses and they’re viewed as an ineffective way of helping to win the election.

So long as you have a voter base which responds to them, you’re going to get them.

Well, sure if you believe in things like "free speech" and "democracy" but Jimmy's a progressive so he was probably thinking Truth Squads and Re-education Camps.

 

[ZiprHead]

OMG! Ohio is a battleground for Senate and Governor, though the Senate race Renacci is floating at the top of the fish bowl. But Mike Dewine and Richard Cordray are battling it out, and Dewine's team or PAC or whatever came out with a brilliant ad that is so shameful, that they should win an award, before losing the right to ever advertise on television again.

"During the Strickland-Cordray era, taxes were raised by $800 million and Ohio lost 400,000 jobs...," says a TV ad by DeWine, the current attorney general. "Richard Cordray will raise taxes. Kill jobs."

For those unaware, Strickland-Cordray were elected Gov / Lt. Gov in 2006. There was a particular event that occurred between 2006 and 2010 that some might just remember. Yet, the ad is actually making a context free claim that Ohio lost 400,000 jobs and had blown a huge hole in the budget due to the Democrat leadership.

This is about as honest as having a woman then coming on and saying "In 2007, I was raped." then another woman saying "When Cordray was Lt. Gov, my husband got cancer." And finally "During Strickland and Cordray's administration, I lost my child in a miscarriage."

Ads like this should come with consequences.

From what I've read, there have been some pretty bad ads from Democrats as well across the country. It just seems that the context of neglecting to note that Strickland/Cordray didn't single handedly plunge the world into a global recession in 2008 seems about as false advertising can get, without actually saying a false statement.

The same sort of ads are running here in Michigan. It's a pretty slimy approach pandering to the low-information voter.

 

[Valjean]

We have an avalanche of mendacious talking points and dire warnings of invasions, totalitarianism and economic collapse if the Republicans aren't elected. The right is campaigning on fear and resentment.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We have an avalanche of mendacious talking points and dire warnings of invasions, totalitarianism and economic collapse if the Republicans aren't elected. The right is campaigning on fear and resentment.

Got them that red wave in 2010. Incredible how much the mass scale lying works.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, they should. However, that consequence should be the person making the ad loses and they’re viewed as an ineffective way of helping to win the election.

That is quite libertarian of you to say.

Sure, the consequences of selling a drug that actually harms the user will mean people stop buying it. This is the real world, not some flight of fancy liberal utopia where people seek out truth.

Well, what's your solution? That candidates can't make negative ads about the other candidates? So, if a congressman gets convicted of taking a bribe while in office and is running his re-election campaign from jail, his opponents can't mention that? If that would be allowable, where's the line of what's a legitimate negative ad and who is it that decides that?

The ad which you mentioned in the OP is factual. Those are the numbers which occurred during the guy's time in office. That should be the bar. So long as you're not actively lying and making stuff up, you should be free to spin the facts however it is that best benefits your campaign. If voters are uninformed enough that the lack of context behind the facts makes them effective attacks, that's an issue with the voters, not with the politicians who cater their message to those voters.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Ya, they should. However, that consequence should be the person making the ad loses and they’re viewed as an ineffective way of helping to win the election.

That is quite libertarian of you to say.

Sure, the consequences of selling a drug that actually harms the user will mean people stop buying it. This is the real world, not some flight of fancy liberal utopia where people seek out truth.

Well, what's your solution?

That if a campaign ad is blatantly false you should be suspended from broadcasting campaign ads. Of course, they'd just have burner ad companies, so it wouldn't solve anything.

That candidates can't make negative ads about the other candidates? So, if a congressman gets convicted of taking a bribe while in office and is running his re-election campaign from jail, his opponents can't mention that? If that would be allowable, where's the line of what's a legitimate negative ad and who is it that decides that?

My OP isn't even remotely about "negative" campaigning, but flat out lying.

The ad which you mentioned in the OP is factual. Those are the numbers which occurred during the guy's time in office.

Some of the numbers are close to accurate, but the whole lies, damn lies, and statistics.

That should be the bar.

It can't be anymore. There needs to be some bare minimum of oversight that says this ad is just too much bullshit.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I heard an advert the other day that had me slightly confused. "Candidate Republican will cut taxes and cut spending. This ad paid for by committee to elect Candidate Democrat."

Okay... The content of the ad could have been run by either, the only real difference was the tone of voice. Has it really gotten that bad between the two tribes?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

]My OP isn't even remotely about "negative" campaigning, but flat out lying.

But you said they didn't lie. They didn't provide the context behind the factual information they presented to show how it was unrelated to the candidate, but that's very different from the information not being true in the first place.

 

[Elixir]

Sure, the consequences of selling a drug that actually harms the user will mean people stop buying it.

I have pondered that particular aspect of "freedom" since I was under 10 years old.
What if all drugs were legal and unregulated? One thing for certain is that a lot of people would die. Okay, that might mitigate the overpopulation problem. And if the deceased were self selected for stupidity and/or lack of self control, all the better from a Darwinian perspective.
Another is that a market might emerge for a credible evaluator of drugs and drug providers and health care providers. But it would take one hell of a Darwinian effect on the population at large to immunize it against the vicious attack on the very concept of facts and truth that is now in process.
I don't think my view has changed much in the last 50+ years, but my enthusiasm for libertarian "solutions" such as complete deregulation of pharmaceuticals has tempered and died while I've watched this society become frayed and segmented to ever-increasing degrees, rendering it helpless against the mendacious deceptions of the powerful.
Still hoping for a small step forward with tomorrow's elections, but not with much optimism.

 

[dismal]

]My OP isn't even remotely about "negative" campaigning, but flat out lying.

But you said they didn't lie. They didn't provide the context behind the factual information they presented to show how it was unrelated to the candidate, but that's very different from the information not being true in the first place.

I'm guessing Jimmy's plan would be to trust Trump to sort out who is and isn't lying and silence the right people.

 

[RVonse]

]My OP isn't even remotely about "negative" campaigning, but flat out lying.

But you said they didn't lie. They didn't provide the context behind the factual information they presented to show how it was unrelated to the candidate, but that's very different from the information not being true in the first place.

I'm guessing Jimmy's plan would be to trust Trump to sort out who is and isn't lying and silence the right people.

 

[zorq]

Sure, the consequences of selling a drug that actually harms the user will mean people stop buying it.

I have pondered that particular aspect of "freedom" since I was under 10 years old.
What if all drugs were legal and unregulated? One thing for certain is that a lot of people would die. Okay, that might mitigate the overpopulation problem. And if the deceased were self selected for stupidity and/or lack of self control, all the better from a Darwinian perspective.
Another is that a market might emerge for a credible evaluator of drugs and drug providers and health care providers. But it would take one hell of a Darwinian effect on the population at large to immunize it against the vicious attack on the very concept of facts and truth that is now in process.
I don't think my view has changed much in the last 50+ years, but my enthusiasm for libertarian "solutions" such as complete deregulation of pharmaceuticals has tempered and died while I've watched this society become frayed and segmented to ever-increasing degrees, rendering it helpless against the mendacious deceptions of the powerful.
Still hoping for a small step forward with tomorrow's elections, but not with much optimism.

The aspect of libertarian thinking that just doesn't work for ME is the unintended and unanticipated external costs of what is presumed to be private behavior.

In the case of deregulated drug markets, millions more people misusing antibiotics leads to more antibiotic resistant pathogens that much sooner. Which of course leads to new epidemics that cautious regulation might have prevented or delayed sufficiently to combat.

In the case of political dialogue, the consequences of a small segment of the population being fed misleading information creates bad political leaders with bad policies that affect the whole population. Or maybe the bad policies only affect a minority outgroup in the greater population, but the tragedy is the same.

 

[Opoponax]

]My OP isn't even remotely about "negative" campaigning, but flat out lying.

But you said they didn't lie. They didn't provide the context behind the factual information they presented to show how it was unrelated to the candidate, but that's very different from the information not being true in the first place.

It's a lie of omission and misrepresents the facts with the intent to mislead the listener/viewer. Therefore, it's a clearly dishonest ad. And ads like this should be banned under the Constitutional limitations of commercial speech which require that an ad not be false or misleading. All that would be required would be to bring suit to enforce the law as it now exists with respect to commercial speech.