Political Advertising Needs New Rules

[redmarvel]

What drives me crazy is the ads that only put down the opponents or their parties.

I don't need them to tell me what is wrong with the other team.

Tell me what you have done in the past, provide proof and tell me what you want to do in the future and how you plan to achieve it.

I almost feel it needs to be a law at this point. No negative political bashing. Focus on the positive.

The other thing I would like to see is a "put your money where your mouth is" law.

If they make a political promise and don't keep it they should get a 1% reduction in pay, benefits and office expense allowance for each year and each promise they fail to keep.

 

[Tempus Fugit]

While I appreciate your frustration the things you're suggesting would never make it through a challenge by any half-decent legal team.

Amendment I:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Politicians lie and attack each other. It's been going on at least since the Pharisees sold out Jesus in favor of Barabbas and probably for a heck of a lot longer.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Negative partisanship really drives voter turnout unfortunately. As someone who wants to get back to 'boring' proper government I know that if my side takes a nap after winning, the other side will be more fired up to destroy the boring government side.

Politico - An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter

Bitecofer’s view of the electorate is driven, in part, by a new way to think about why Americans vote the way they do. She counts as an intellectual mentor Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University who popularized the concept of “negative partisanship,” the idea that voters are more motivated to defeat the other side than by any particular policy goals.

In a piece explaining his work in POLITICO Magazine, Abramowitz wrote: “Over the past few decades, American politics has become like a bitter sports rivalry, in which the parties hang together mainly out of sheer hatred of the other team, rather than a shared sense of purpose. Republicans might not love the president, but they absolutely loathe his Democratic adversaries. And it’s also true of Democrats, who might be consumed by their internal feuds over foreign policy and the proper role of government were it not for Trump.”

Bitecofer took this insight and mapped it across the country. As she sees it, it isn’t quite right to refer to a Democratic or Republican “base.” Rather, there are Democratic and Republican coalitions, the first made of people of color, college-educated whites and people in metropolitan areas; the second, mostly noncollege whites, with a smattering of religious-minded voters, financiers and people in business, largely in rural and exurban counties.