More than $4 billion will be spent on the 2010 midterm elections -- the lion's share of it on advertising on television, radio, and even a bit on the Internet. But what are we getting for all that money? Thanks to recent Supreme Court decisions, congressional campaign finance reform efforts that backfired, the cynicism of outside special interest groups, reckless challengers and frightened incumbents, mostly what we've gotten is a barrage of negativity that has dismayed even the most veteran observers.
While some champions of good manners tout the virtues of "the civilogue," the midterm mudslinging goes on unabated, most of it on the airwaves. True, this is a familiar lament every two years. But the cornucopia of attack ads in 2010 is not imaginary, and is reflective of a sour mood among the electorate, the close competitiveness of the struggle between the two major parties, and the sheer volume of the money being spent.
"When the economy is bad and things are not going well, candidates are not out there talking about how great things are," says Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group. So what's a candidate to do in this anti-Washington, anti-incumbent campaign? "They are left," Tracey says, "with one option -- to talk about their opponent."
Yet it's not all incivility and character assassination out there. If you look, there are positive ads, some of them quite clever. Humor can still be effective, especially in campaign-produced-videos, which sometimes are posted directly on YouTube by the campaigns. At Politics Daily we identified examples -- bipartisan, of course -- of all three styles. And so, with all due respect to Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach, here are our 2010 finalists in the categories of The Good, the Bad and the Funny.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/10/31/campaign-ads-2010-the-good-the-bad-and-the-funny/I hadn''t seen all of these. Fun to look at ads from out of state that haven't been played in my state 7 zillion times.
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