American Electoral Silliness

[billroper]

When the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill passed, we were told that it would do a lot to reduce the influence of big money in campaigns. Skeptics said that the money would find its way in via new channels.

The skeptics appear to be correct. The big campaign finance news in this election cycle is the proliferation of 527 groups, named after the section of the IRS Code that authorizes them. If they receive donations from individuals, they can spend the money on any sort of issue-oriented advertising that they want to, as long as they don't advocate the election of a candidate and don't coordinate with anyone running for office.

Now, you'd probably think that allowing issue-oriented ads would be a good thing, if you're in favor of free speech and all that. (I am.) But the net result of this is that we've got an incredible proliferation of attack ads which -- up until fairly recently -- came primarily from groups that (charitably) don't like Bush.

This didn't seem to bother a lot of people -- ok, it probably did bother a lot of people, but not, I suspect, most of those who like Kerry -- until a 527 group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, ran an ad attacking Kerry. At this point, negative ads from 527 groups suddenly hit the radar screen.

Folks, we have enshrined in law a system that is designed to produce negative campaign advertising. The 527s can't say that Candidate X is good, but they sure as heck can say that Candidate Y is an evil, scum-sucking toad. The big money cut a new channel and flows freely. Should we have expected anything else?

If you'd like to read a reasonably informative article on the subject, here's one from MSNBC. Be sure to note how much money has gone to the anti-Bush groups from a relatively small number of big money donors...

(And, for my friends who live outside the U.S, are your campaign finance laws nearly this silly?)

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

(Sorry; I just got around to reading this.)

I don't have time to find sources to rebut, but I hope you're right. (Well, that's not exactly right. I'd be pleased to know that there has been more anti-Bush ads than anti-Kerry ads, because the unforunately reality is that the damn things work. And there's been so much lying, cheating, and stealing surrounding the Bush administration that it would be great to have some of it get airplay. But I'd be disappointed to learn that more anti-Bush money has been spent, because I think that the anti-Kerry stuff has been more effective and that means that the anti-Kerry groups have been more effective with fewer dollars.) As much as I loathe the negative campaign strategies of the past decade, I accept the realities of where we are today.

B

[billroper]

Ah! If you took away from my original post the idea that there were more anti-Bush ads than anti-Kerry ads, that wasn't the message that I was trying to convey. It seems fairly clear that there are more negative ads originating from anti-Bush 527 groups than from anti-Kerry 527 groups, but that doesn't necessarily give the full picture of negative advertising during this campaign season, since the Bush and Kerry campaigns can pay for their own negative advertising if they need to.

The trick here is that Bush is having to pay for his own negative ads (mostly) which allows Kerry to -- as the CBS News editor quote suggests -- say that his campaign is positive, while still getting the benefits of negative advertising. (Much as Bush can receive benefits from the negative Swift Boat ads, while declaiming against all of the 527 activity on both sides.)

I saw a count on negative ads from one source a while back that said that the Bush campaign had run more negative ads than Kerry, but that omitted the ads that were run during the primary season when there were a variety of anti-Bush ads run to benefit the various Democratic candidates. Of course, that's the hazard of incumbency -- the opposition knows who to shoot at.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"Ah! If you took away from my original post the idea that there were more anti-Bush ads than anti-Kerry ads, that wasn't the message that I was trying to convey."

Oh.

I was responding to this: "But the net result of this is that we've got an incredible proliferation of attack ads which -- up until fairly recently -- came primarily from groups that (charitably) don't like Bush."

And yes, I took your statement to mean that there have been more anti-Bush ads than anti-Kerry ads. I mean, it seems like a reasonable interpretation of the sentence.

Clearly the various rules different groups can operate under clouds the issues.

BTW, Kerry's latest respond ad is here. I was able to get it to run in my browser. Sadly, I don't think it's all that good. Things like the New York Times article and the essay by the rebuttal by the Chicago Tribune guy are much more effective, although they won't be seen by nearly as many people.

B

[billroper]

My apologies. Obviously, what I meant to say in that sentence -- and which is, I think, reinforced by the rest of the writeup -- was "we've got an incredible proliferation of attack ads from 527 groups which...".

I looked at Kerry's ad and agree with you, especially since McCain is supporting Bush -- while condemning the Swift Boat ads and, in a statement that I saw somewhere but don't have a link to, the 527 activities in general.

I read the Tribune article on-line today, which will save me from reading it in print tomorrow. :)