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| Candidates
Begin Ad Campaigns for 2004 Presidential Election |
Posted:06.14.04 | |
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though Election Day is nearly five months off, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry,
D-Mass., are already spending millions of dollars on television and radio advertising,
hoping to reach the majority of Americans who will learn about the candidates
in 30-second commercials. Printer-friendly versions: HTML
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With the explosive growth of television during the 1950s and '60s, the role
of campaign ads has increased in significance in American elections. One
of the first ads appeared in 1952 with Republican candidate Dwight Eisenhower's
animated commercial, "I Like Ike," produced by the Disney Studio. Eisenhower
reached over 19 million TV  viewers,
while his opponent endured arduous campaign tours to meet voters. Eisenhower won
the election by a landslide. By the 1960 presidential campaign between
Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican candidate Richard Nixon, nine
of every ten American homes owned a television set, making the campaign ad an
extremely popular and effective means to communicate with voters. Since those early campaigns,
the format of the ads has changed dramatically. For instance, candidates in the
1950s and '60s would buy up to 30 minutes of television airtime for a commercial.
Today, candidates purchase anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds to run their commercials.
Though the format and style of ads has evolved, their main purpose continues
to be to summarize and reinforce public impressions of the candidates, positive
or negative. | |
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| The
Bush/Kerry ad fight | |
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Analysts expect the 2004 presidential campaign to be one of the most expensive
and perhaps negative, as the two lead candidates, Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat
from Massachusetts, and President George W. Bush, a Republican, battle to woo
voters. Though the campaign season is just beginning, Kerry and  Bush
have already begun saturating the airwaves with ads. Since the Democratic
challenger is less well known, the president's media strategy has sponsored commercials
intended to undermine the image Kerry has worked to carefully craft in his ads.
For instance, a recent 30-second spot titled "Pessimism" -- an
apparent rebuttal to Kerry's "Optimists" ad -- critiques the senator's
comments that America's economic recovery is the worst since the Great Depression
of the 1930s. "Pessimism never created a job," a narrator says
over an image of a sour-faced Kerry. Then, President Bush defines himself as the
optimist: "I'm optimistic about America because I believe in the people of
America." At least 70 percent of the 17 ads President Bush aired between
March and June were critical of Kerry, according to the nonpartisan Campaign Media
Analysis Group. By contrast, Kerry ran ten ads of which 75 percent highlighted
his own life or agenda. Roughly 25 percent of those ads directly criticized President
Bush, the group estimated. | |
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| Evaluating
political ads | |
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So, how should voters evaluate these ads? The first thing to do is watch
for the candidate's personal approval of the ad, as a way to ensure the message
was not  created
by another group that does not represent the candidate. Due to the new
McCain-Feingold law -- which set rules on raising and spending campaign funds
-- the presidential candidates must run a statement or appear in their own ads
long enough to say, "I approved of this message." The idea is that candidates
will take responsibility for what they claim in their ads, and engage in fewer
attacks, or "mud-slinging," against their competitor. The campaigns
have already spent a record $100 million on television ads between March and early
June, primarily in "swing" states, where it is hard to judge whether
the president or Kerry will win. | |
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| Exaggerated
or misleading claims? | |
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| Brooks
Jackson, who analyzes political ads for FactCheck.org, finds that many of the
campaign ads more or less "stick to the facts, though selectively and with
a bit of puffery." In one Kerry ad, called "Lifetime," a narrator
provides basic facts about Kerry's early life and highlights of his achievements
in the  Senate,
including "his decisive vote" for an economic plan in the 1990s that
"created 20 million new jobs." Jackson calls the "decisive
vote" a "dubious claim" and points out that "many factors
led to the economic boom of the 1990s," not just Kerry's vote. The
Bush reelection campaign has engaged in its own "puffery" or fact selection.
One ad, called "Doublespeak," quotes various newspaper comments chiding
Kerry for his "doublespeak," or flip-flopping, on his stance on the
Iraq war and other issues.  While
the quotes are accurate, Jackson notes, the commercial omits the fact that nearly
all the quotes are from editorials, not news reports. "In other words they
are opinions, not facts," Jackson states.
Both camps argue that their
ads are positive and accurate. Which communications strategy will ultimately be
successful? We'll know come November. --
Liz Harper, Online NewsHour | |
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Like many Californians, I live in a town where teenagers drive to school in gas-guzzling SUVs and pick-up trucks just because they want to look powerful and extravagant.
