Accusations thrown like grenades, unflattering pictures tossed up, and finger pointing galore: It sounds like your average daytime soap opera, but unfortunately this is politics in 2012.
Annoying political ads are nothing new, they have been making innocent TV watchers scramble for the remote since television's creation. But for some reason, this particular election season has ignited the vitriolic tendencies in many candidates. Every ploy, every ambiguous statement, every campaign gaffe is being utilized to its full extent. No longer can a candidate frown without it ending up on TV, no doubt with an example of their poor qualities to complete the package. In fact, the only thing many of these ads seem to highlight is that the campaign people are becoming extremely efficient with finding obscure quotes and working with Photoshop. As much as the hardworking campaign technicians are appreciated, it is the skills of the candidates that are probably more important to the American people.
But how do these vitriolic ads actually add to the campaign? Do voters even care?
According to University of Florida News, in a study done by UF professor Stephen Craig and UF doctoral student Paulina S. Rippere, voters dislike both the overabundance of negativity that hateful political ads can bring and realize that these ads are biased.
Having just a constant attack of the opponent says nothing of the accusers' qualities other than that he or she dislikes his or her opponent. This in turn does nothing to help the undecided voter make a decision regarding how his or her country is going to be run.
"They [political ads] represent an aggressively unclean and divided society,” said Daniel Perez, a UF freshman. “One group is an enemy. Any ad is completely biased. I support the Democrats on some of their issues, but sometimes I can't trust their ads."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo_Ejfc5hW8
This video created by Carly Fiorina in 2010 highlights the ridiculous qualities of some political ads.
Now, the tendency of presidential ads to get nasty has almost become common in Florida because of its swing state status. However, even senatorial races are generating extremely acerbic ads. Connie Mack and Bill Nelson have been going at it for months, at least on the television, accusing each other about everything from massive tax raising to brawling. Though issues like ObamaCare and taxes have and should be present in such ads, the two candidates have taken the name calling to such a high level that rebuttal ads have become campaigns within themselves. In a web ad, Connie Mack argued against Bill Nelson’s portrayal of him as a brawler and Hooter’s employee. Bill Nelson then called out Mack on one of his television ads.
On the bright side, these rebuttals encourage more of a debating aspect among senatorial and congressional campaigns. While the American public may tune in for a presidential debate, lower office debates are something else entirely. Rebuttals may actually end up encouraging debate about the issues between the candidates, but only if they can restrain from name-calling.
Overall, however, most can agree that negative political ads are simply annoying commercials that get the radio station switched, the newspaper page turned and the television channel changed as quickly as possible. The ads are simply unreliable and many Americans are smart enough to understand the bias, whether they choose to agree with it or not.
If you want to check the validity of some of the ads you’ve seen or heard, go to http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/political-ad-tracker/index or http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/.
