It is conventionally thought and agreed that politics is a dirty game. Well, if the current events in the presidential race are to go by, then it can be said that this assertion is true to the letter. According to Peters, the current presidential hopefuls have turned to a form of campaigning that can be said to be a bit ‘uncivilized’ to say the least (para 1). Nevertheless, everything goes in politics, and as long as anything gives one the running edge, then the end justifies the means. The issue of discussion is that the two opponents have taken to negative advertisements, soiling the names of each other to the public. In the first instance, Peters observes that in the local NBC station, there has been an ad involving a man who talks ill of Obama’s policies to small business owners. At the end of the ad, Mitt Romney says that he supports the ad (para 2). The station also runs an ad by Obama where he criticizes Romney’s habit of storing up his wealth overseas and also outsourcing jobs to India and Mexico. The ads, it is vividly clear, are aimed at making the public see the negative side of the opponents, hence give the advertiser an advantage.
After looking at these developments, my mind raced back to the previous elections and the manner in which the mass media was employed in swinging the opinions. The incumbent president was hailed for effectively utilizing this strategy to his advantage. He campaigned through the social sites such as Face book and Twitter, and many others across the globe took after him. He even raised money for his campaigns through the same channel! This time round, he seems to be going the same way but adding more to the game. Left with no choice, Mitt Romney has to follow suit and straighten out his record which would be otherwise ruined by Obama’s tactics. As such, the field of play for the negative political ads is set.
I also sought to understand where all the hullaballoo about negative ads came from, and also the first instances where the media was used as a platform for political campaigns. I came to realize that since time immemorial, politicians have always used any means possible to get ahead of their competition. However, there was the need to reach out to the greater masses, and nothing could do better in this than the mass media (Chang, Park and Shim 1). As such, they started investing much of their campaign monies in the ads. This started as far back as 1956 when Dwight Eisenhower ran a presidential campaign that heavily relied on television commercials. The same happened in 1996 with Clinton spending a whooping 98.4 million dollars in his campaigns. The current trend shows that the media drama is set to continue unfolding in an even more interesting manner.
But what exactly is the basis for these negative advertisements? According to Chang, Park and Shim, there are two legal touchstones that promote the negative political advertising. The 1934 Communication Act which distinguishes between candidate ads and product or service ads as well as the amendments on the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1976 set the wheel for the negative ads rolling. The 1976 amendments allow for private individuals as well as political action committees to spend as much as they wanted on their candidates (2). This revelation made me understand why the negative ads have been on the rise with no opposition at all.
With this understanding, I internalized the issue and gave my own moral judgment on the same. In my opinion, I find the negative ads quite barbaric. I do not see the sense as to why one individual should expose the weaknesses of another so as he can get an advantage over him. This sounds more like seeking sympathy votes rather than getting a well deserved and sweated for victory. Rather than spend so much time and money trying to soil each other’s names, I feel that the politicians should be more concerned about selling their policies to the people and making the masses believe in them. Let the victory be based on who has the best policies and can sell himself more effectively, rather than on who has the ability to expose the evils of the other more clearly. For this reason, I put it that Obama and Romney should quite this strategy and focus more on telling the Americans what they have to offer.
Works Cited
Author. (2012). Political Science. (Course Textbook)
Chang, Won Ho, Park, Jae-Jin, & Shim, Sung Wook. Effectiveness of Negative Political Advertising. Ohio University, 1 December, 1998. Web, 26th July 2012, http://www.scripps.ohiou.edu/wjmcr/vol02/2-1a-B.htm
Peters, Jeremy W. Negative Ads Hit Identity to Shape Race for Presidency. The New York Times, July 25, 2012. Web, 26th July 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/us/politics/negative-ads-hit-at-identity-to-shape-race.html?_r=1&ref=politics
