Rick Raw: Attack Ads are the Cesspool of Politics

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

Presidential candidates spend millions on television advertising, most of which degenerates into negative or attack ads as the campaigns drag on. This disgraceful fall from grace smears dung on the entire campaigns of both parties, reducing the political process to a stinking cesspool. Why do the candidates continue to use this low ball tactic? It works! Then the next logical question is: Why does it work? Well, the obvious answer is: Voters are brainwashed by their partisan media to believe these lies, half truths, and rumors. In other words, the ads are preaching to the choir.

However, the psychology behind these ads is crafted by brainy sociologists and savvy political strategists to play to the fears and anxieties of the target audience.
For example: In a recent attack ad from the McCain camp claims that Obama will raise taxes on the middle class. It’s a boldfaced lie, but this is the same tired rhetoric that the Republican party has been preaching for years, characterizing Democrats as tax and spend liberals. The ad plays to the Republican voting block’s fears of raised taxes.

On the other hand, Obama runs ads that accuse McCain of aligning himself with W’s policies. That ad is not really true. McCain is much more left leaning that W, a fact that the crazed evangelicals have complained about. McCain is more of a centrist than the Bush league of undistinguished gentlemen. And so it goes.

Political strategists know that the ads work and when one party begins the mud slinging, the other party has to retaliate or slip in the polls. For deeply psychological reasons, the rise in poll numbers is directly proportional to the cleverness of the attack ads. If the other side ignores the attack ads and doesn’t retaliate, they end up losing significant ground.

The truth is: The ads work because they reach the voters on an emotional level like the famous LBJ ad, featuring a little girl picking the petals off flowers and in the background a mushroom cloud. Of course, this was playing to the public’s fear of bomb during the cold war. It ignited the masses’ irrational dread of a full blown global thermonuclear war with the USSR.

Other psychological elements factor into the attack ad equation. The unending tongue wagging of conservative talk show hosts spewing unsubstantiated opinion blasting Obama chips away at Obama’s "change" image. This claptrap riding the radio waves is a significant threat to Obama’s popularity. With very few liberal talk show hosts countering this barrage of negative opinion, the McCain camp uses the radio as back up artillery to bolster their attack ads.

And I ask: Are people that naive as to believe these highly paid blowhards? Well, the ratings tell the story. Rush Limbaugh leads the pack, commanding a vast audience of millions of listeners. In Limbaugh’s case, he just says what he wants, regardless of the facts. Again, he’s yapping to a partisan audience of conservatives who agree with him. So, he’s only reinforcing his audience’s beliefs. Then the attack-ad infantry is called in to further clear the battlefield.

Let’s face it, American politics is a dirty game and as the election gets closer, the war escalates into hand to hand combat. Candidates will do anything or say anything to win. Any semblance of a candidate running an honest and clean campaign disappears in a cloud of attack ad explosions. Soon, the television is burning up with attack ads from both parties-- insinuating, accusing, and claiming the other guy is a no-good rotten son-of-a-bitch not worthy of being president or a janitor for that matter.

It’s up to the voter to tune-out attack ads and talk show hosts. Assume they are unmitigated liars and vote for the candidate of your choice based on your own research.