One bad ad after another

This year, once again, a huge number of Americans will experience their most tangible encounter with politics not at a campaign rally, debat...

This year, once again, a huge number of Americans will experience their most tangible encounter with politics not at a campaign rally, debate, or meetup, or even on the evening news, but by being subjected to a televised political advertisement. And then, very likely, another and another and another8230;

Election seasons flood the airwaves with ads. By a wide margin, campaigns are now spending more on advertising than on anything else, and with each cycle the amount they spend grows dramatically. The Campaign Media Analysis Group, a private firm that tracks televised political ads, counted a total of 1,497,386 spots aired in the nation8217;s top 100 markets in 2002. And that year, even without a presidential election, the cost for the first time exceeded 1 billion8230; This year those numbers will easily be eclipsed.

Being on the receiving end of all this can feel more like punishment than politics: not only do these ads arrive at an unrelenting pace, but they are nearly indistinguishable from one another. Every year, like clockwork, the same shopworn phrases are intoned against a flow of stock footage in identical, shoddily produced attacks 8220;My opponent says he8217;s against terrorism 8212; so why did he cut funding for our troops?8221; and counterattacks 8220;We need progress, not divisive attacks8221;, all narrated with the same portent-of-doom voice-over implying that a miscast vote for first selectman could imperil the republic. Most people would agree that televised political ads, almost without exception, are remorselessly bad.

This is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that commercials for consumer products actually tend to be quite good, and the TV-viewing public is exceptionally savvy about advertising. Consumer ads regularly warrant their own prime-time TV specials, and have become such a staple of our popular culture that Super Bowl hype now derives as much from the debuts of high-profile ad campaigns as from the game itself. So it8217;s strange that the commercials that seek to influence the most important 8220;brand choice8221; any of us can make 8212; for the leader of the free world 8212; so consistently lag in quality and imagination behind those intended to influence our choice of light beer8230;

In 2002 one political-consulting firm, Politically-e, dispensed with any illusion of originality and offered pre-taped political commercials that campaigns could buy and tailor to the candidate, like off-the-rack suits8230;

Indeed, political ads have remained strikingly similar since the 1950s, even as consumer ads have evolved dramatically. The difference seems to be that consumer advertisers prize originality, whereas political advertisers prize conformity. In that regard political ads function as a microcosm of politics generally 8212; characterised by frequent and dramatic hyperbole, but resistant to all but the most incremental change.

Excerpted from an article by Joshua Green in 8216;The Atlantic Monthly8217;, July/August