Edited For Clarity

Transcript below the video:

Transcript

Welcome Back

One topic that came up in conversation this week was that of campaign advertising. With just over 3 months left to the mid-term elections, ads have gotten nastier already. It didn’t take long after the primaries to have things get ugly. Here in California, some of the nastiest have been the Meg Whitman ads against Jerry Brown for California governor.

The amazing thing is not quick they got negative, but how quickly they went straight to falsehoods. While I’m not convinced Brown is the best California can do, it is amazing the Whitman’s ads have already been caught in not one, but seven misrepresentations IN A SINGLE AD. Two have been deemed outright lies, the rest either misleading or requiring more information to clarify. In fact, FactCheck.org found that the ad “fails to tell the truth”.

The ads taken out for Brown by a coalition of labor unions is not much better, using partial facts to support their candidate, making accusations that aren’t supported, or are supported using only half the facts. Which of course, caused Whitman to release her own ad, swinging back at the original, containing even more embellishments.

I’m sure this isn’t the only region where the campaign ads are flying fast and furious and the ad creators are taking significant creative license with their claims. This is happening across the country, and some of the claims – and ads – being made are beyond the pale. And it seems the more contentious the battle, the uglier – and farther from truth – the claims get.

So how do we fix this? How do we get back to the point where campaigns are talking about real issues instead of just making stuff up about each other? It’s no wonder that voters tend toward apathy. Most primaries were over in June, meaning nearly 5 months of bash, bash, bash from candidates and campaigns. Is it really a surprise that voters are sick and tired of hearing it by November? The ones who have made up their minds won’t change, and those who haven’t are likely to stay away from the polls because they can’t tell the lies from the truth on either side.

Groups like the folks at FactCheck.org do an admirable job, but you can bet that most voters don’t know who they are, and campaigns aren’t going to tout it when their ad is less than truthful. Yet, that should be exactly what should happen. Want a winning campaign ad? Create one that FactCheck.org can’t debunk in just a couple of minutes. Air that ad, and let the opponenet try to take it apart. Heck, challenge FactCheck or someone like them to find fault with the ad. If they can’t – you’ve got a winner. The other side will attack the ad, but it would already have been vetted. Now they have to call the fact checkers liars as well.

But again, it’s not likely to happen. So what can we do?

There are plenty of ideas, but they will all take some significant courage on someone’s part. Not one of them will be popular with politicians and special interest groups. Why? Because you’ll be taking away their prime tools to sway your vote.

One big problem that would need to be addressed is the tilted playing field that is campaign advertising. It takes millions to run ads on radio and TV. The smaller candidates stand no chance of competing with the big players. Which means one of two things – they fall behind in being able to get their message out, or they fall prey to the special interests that have the deep pockets it takes to run a campaign messaging program.

Leveling this playing field is crucial to fixing this problem. But how do you get there?

One way is to limit campaign advertising. Doing so, however, will raise hackles all around, with everyone screaming about impediments to free speech. And yet, it’s necessary. So how do you do this WITHOUT infringing on the rights of candidates and backers? The answer is very simple:

Free market control.

How does this work? First, create legislation that limits the price of campaign ads, not the amount being spent. The amount needs to be ridiculously low, to remove the barrier for entry to even the smallest players. When everyone can afford to take an ad, they all will.

But this will affect the profits of broadcasters, right? Not necessarily. All you are setting is a price for ads. You’re not telling the broadcaster to run them. So the broadcaster can choose how much they “lose” on those ads.

The next piece of the puzzle is to require equal rotation for each CAMPAIGN. Not advertisers, but specific campaigns. For example, if the Brown campaign has an ad, regardless of who pays for it, the Whitman campaign gets one. And if there is a third party challenger, They get one too, before another ad from the other two can run.

Two things will happen. First, smaller campaigns will get a chance to come into the market, as the barrier has been removed and they are guaranteed equal time. Second, the ads will actually be reduced. Why? The lower price becomes a burden to the broadcaster. If they know there are three candidates, it means for every ad they take from one, they will necessarily have to run two more. They won’t be forced to run any ads, and the folks with the most money won’t be able to wallpaper the airwaves.

What are the chances of this happening? Frankly, slim and none, and slim just left town. But it is a solution. It’s not perfect, but it’s gotta be better than what we’ve got.

Here’s another option – Create a rating system, and require it to be used prior to any ad. Think along the lines of the ratings before previews at the movies. A group like FactCheck.org, or something similar does the fact-checking and produces a rating on the factual nature of the ads. They must be non-partisan, simply fact-checking the claims in the ads. Then the rating is tacked on at the beginning of the ad.

“This ad has been rated “T” for truth by the Ad Verification Council”

or

“This ad has been rated “P” for Pinocchio by the Ad Verification Council”

Again, is this going to happen? Not likely. But the solutions are there – it’s just a matter of implementing them, or something else, instead of throwing our hands up in the air and resigning ourselves to another season of attack ads filled with lies.

What has to happen is that we have to cut the crap and give voters real choices with real facts about the things they care about. It’s why they stay away from the polls. Voter registrations and participation are ridiculously low for a country that has a representative government. You can’t complain that your government doesn’t represent you if you didn’t vote for the representation. If you voted and didn’t get the candidate you wanted, you’ve got some grounds for griping. But if you didn’t vote at all, you’ve got no right to complain. You had a chance to make a difference and you didn’t take it.

But with all the noise around election time, it’s hard to expect everyone to sort the wheat from the chaff and figure out where the assorted politicians stand on various issues. Maybe these aren’t ideas aren’t the perfect solutions. But they are solutions. What’s your idea?

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