The Problem With Advertisements

I’ve written about the media aspect of politics such as candidates’ use of television advertisements and the extreme influence that those advertisements have on voters. Advertisements are a big part of politics and recently in the mid-term election race democrats are trying to get every advantage they can get as the election nears, with only three weeks to go. House Democrats said they will have about $10 million more than their Republican counterparts to spend on television advertising in these final weeks before Election Day. This conclusion comes from numbers provided by both parties. Officials at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Thursday that they had $40 million to invest in advertisements while officials at the National Republican Congressional Committee said they expected to spend about $30 million. However this lead that the democrats believe themselves to have may be dwindling down in the near future as the House Republican committee is getting considerable additional help from outside groups. Several third party groups are spending millions of dollars raised from anonymous donors to bash Democrats.

This situation is all about competition between the two parties on who can raise the most money for advertisement. Advertisements would not be important had it not been proven that the more advertisements, the more likely someone is to win. This is what seems too absurd to me as I can’t believe the number of voters who are swayed one way or another by these advertisements. The Republican and Democratic parties have realized the power and influence of advertisements which is why they continue to spend millions of dollars each year on advertising. Advertisements are simply 30 second commercials on TV that provide facts that often the voter doesn’t take the time to go verify or validate. My opinion is often never swayed by these advertisements and I believe it never will be. I think that advertising would be good had it not always been filled with false facts. I also have a problem with the fact that so many advertisements attack the competition party rather than uplift the party sponsoring the advertisement. Political advertisements are something which I am highly disappointed by and disapprove of.