USA: Ahead of the mid-term election in the U.S., millions of dollars are spent as campaign advertising becomes increasingly nasty

Record ID: 346004

  • Title: USA: Ahead of the mid-term election in the U.S., millions of dollars are spent as campaign advertising becomes increasingly nasty
  • Date: 26th October 2010
  • Summary: BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 14, 2010) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) TOBE BERKOVITZ, A PROFESSOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY, SAYING "Right now, it's just like a cage match. Two politicians locked in there trying to literally pound the other one into submission. It doesn't do much for the candidate. It doesn't do much for the voters. And certainly doesn't do much for democracy. But unfortunately, that's the reality of our environment."
  • Embargoed: 10th November 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA94V84HJ9AVCVA5JP6LV1RJA88
  • Story Text: Campaign season in the United States ordinarily brings out negative campaign advertising But this election season, the tone is particularly nasty. Just one week before the congressional midterm elections, campaign advertisements costing tens of millions of dollars have hit the airwaves across the country. It is estimated that before election day on November 2, politicians and various outside interest groups will have spent an amount exceeding the combined gross national product of several small Pacific nations.
    Some campaign advertisements are direct and their messages very simple. Other times, they tend toward the outrageous and the incendiary.
    In Delaware, Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell, the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat surprised many in this mid-Atlantic state with her first campaign ad.
    "I'm not a witch," says O'Donnell, looking directly into the television camera. "I'm nothing you've heard. I'm you."
    O'Donnell has been trying to diffuse a mild controversy in her campaign after an 11-year-old video surfaced in which she declares on a television program that during her high school years she "dabbled in witchcraft."
    In an attempt at counterattack, O'Donnell produced a campaign commercial that portrays her opponent s some sort of evil character from a horror movie: "Hide your will. Hide your lights. 'Cause he's taxing everything out here. Chris Coons is the 'Tax Man."
    In Arizona, Ben Quayle, the son of former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle, is running for Congress as a tough-as-nails Republican who will go to Washington to oppose vigorously the agenda of President Barack Obama.
    "Barack Obama is the worst president in history," Quayle says in his advertisement. "In my generation, we'll inherit a weakened country. Drug cartels in Mexico, tax cartels in D.C. What's happened to America?"
    Both the Quayle ad and O'Donnell's 'I'm not a witch' ad were produced with a singular purpose -- grabbing the public's attention.
    "The first thing that makes an ad effective is it breaks through the clutter and people pay attention to it," says Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University communications professor who is an expert in campaign commercials. "And that is a really difficult task. Remember, not only are you competing with your opponent, the politician, but you're competing with automobiles, with iPads, with everything that's out there in the environment. So it's very tough to break through the clutter."
    While campaign advertisements typically criticize a lawmaker's voting record, many ads this campaign season deliver a more biting personal message.
    In Florida, Democrat Allan Grayson, who is trying to hold onto his congressional seat, has likened his opponent to the Taliban.
    "Daniel Webster wants to impose his radical fundamentalism on us," says a female narrator. "Webster tried to deny battered women medical care and the right to divorce their abusers. He wants to force raped women to bear the child. Taliban Daniel Webster. Hands off our bodies."
    California Senator Barbara Boxer has gotten personal with her opponent, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina.
    "Fiorina shipped jobs to China and while Californians lost their jobs," intones a male narrator. "Fiorina tripled her salary and bought a million-dollar yacht. Carly Fiorina. Outsourcing jobs. Out for herself."
    Political observers say that maintaining the more positive high-road in this election cycle is a potentially foolhardy strategy, especially with control of the House and Senate hanging in the balance.
    "The problem that we found is that a campaign that really wants to stay on the high road, a candidate that wants to talk about the issues and policy and not get down in the dirt--, what happens is, all of a sudden they watch their polling numbers frequently start to shrink because the negative ads start to tarnish them, start to pull them down," says Boston University's Tobe Berkovitz. "It's very, very difficult to stay on the high ground."
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