Political Advertising

Government bureaucrats want your water softener. The Culligan Man is fighting back. The company behind the renowned "Hey Culligan Man!" advertising campaign of the 1950s has launched a political and public relations offensive to kill a bill targeting its signature product. That proposal would allow regulators to ban conventional water softeners that discharge salt into municipal sewer lines.

The television commercial is designed to spark outrage. "Billions of taxpayer dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries," it intones. "The Obama administration admitted the truth - that $2.3 billion of tax credits went overseas, while millions of Americans can't find a job…. American taxpayers are paying to send their own jobs to foreign countries. " But the widely broadcast anti-Obama ad, paid for by a conservative group called Americans for Prosperity, is highly misleading - a slick pastiche of untruths, half-truths and exaggerations.

Fred Davis -- the man who introduced vermin, Paris Hilton, bad hair and now demonic mutton into our political discourse -- is a bit taken aback by the reaction to his latest creation. "More sheep in my day than I was expecting," he said after sorting through messages from reporters across the country, all of them wanting to talk about the online video -- an instant cult classic -- he created for Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina. "You certainly never know what's going to catch on."

Public radio and television stations may no longer be a safe haven from political advertising. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threw out a federal statute that prohibited public radio and television stations from accepting political advertisements. In its 2-1 decision Thursday, the court kept intact rules banning advertising for for-profit entities on public stations. Some media advocacy groups blasted the ruling, concerned that public radio and television stations will become just another platform for political attack ads. "Polluting public broadcasting with misleading and negative political ads is not in keeping with the original vision of noncommercial broadcasting," said Craig Aaron, president and chief executive of Free Press.

The television commercial is designed to spark outrage. "Billions of taxpayer dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries," it intones. "The Obama administration admitted the truth - that $2.3 billion of tax credits went overseas, while millions of Americans can't find a job…. American taxpayers are paying to send their own jobs to foreign countries. " But the widely broadcast anti-Obama ad, paid for by a conservative group called Americans for Prosperity, is highly misleading - a slick pastiche of untruths, half-truths and exaggerations.

If you have children of an impressionable age, and you haven't already taken this precaution, I'm advising that you immediately take your television outside and smash it with a sledgehammer before the next political ad is aired. Children should not see this stuff. It's toxic, it will arrest development and is guaranteed to corrupt all sense of civility. Adults shouldn't see them either, but after years of exposure, we're already damaged for life. The basic formula in running for governor of California — and to establish yourself as a trustworthy leader — is to misrepresent who you are, to accuse your opponents of torturing toddlers and small pets, and to address voters as if they were no smarter than soft-boiled eggs.

It sometimes seems that just about everyone except Kenneth W. Starr, Latrell Sprewell and Col. Tom Parker have had a share of the lead in this year's gubernatorial race. At the beginning of the year, statewide polling gave the edge among Democrats to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, already a well-known political figure. When she dropped out, poll respondents shuffled over to airline mega-millionaire Al Checchi, who already had spent enough on TV commercials to ease the Indonesian financial crisis.

California's decision to fold its primary election into the Super Tuesday political sweepstakes has helped quintuple prices for some spot advertising on local television stations. The cost of a last-minute 30-second spot purchased during a local late-night news show has mushroomed recently to $25,000, up from $5,000 on Jan. 1, according to Initiative Media, a Los Angeles-based media-buying company.

Take a drive in rural parts of Texas and California, turn on the radio, and hear this: "If you own a firearm, listen to what Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis says about you." Then the same voice continues: "I don't believe in people owning guns--only the police and military." That ad produced by the National Rifle Assn. won't be heard nationally. Nor were they officially sanctioned by the George Bush campaign.

Offering specious arguments about free speech and intimidation, Republicans are trying to derail an executive order by the Obama administration that would shed light on the political activities of government contractors. The order would require them to disclose any contributions they make to organizations that engage in political advertising, including the Chamber of Commerce and the shadowy groups known as 501c(4)s. In that way voters would know who was behind advertisements by groups with vague or innocuous names.

The fact-checking of political ads is a cottage industry in any election year, but the 2012 presidential race has been especially rich in misrepresentations, cheap shots and outright lies. Media critics and services such as FactCheck.org have been working overtime to deconstruct attack ads and quantify their deceptiveness. (The Washington Post bestows up to four "Pinocchios" on deceptive ads, with one Pinocchio indicating "some shading of the facts" and four reflecting "whoppers. ")

It's well known that the Supreme Court in its 2010 Citizens United decision lifted restrictions on political advertising by unions and corporations, contributing to the orgy of special-interest spending already on view in the 2012 presidential campaign. Less noted was the decision's reaffirmation of the constitutionality of laws requiring disclosure of the identities of political donors. Yet as the campaign already has demonstrated, Congress has not done nearly enough to shine the light of disclosure on who is bankrolling efforts on behalf of particular candidates, including those sponsored by supposedly independent "super PACs.

Trevor Potter is an unlikely repeat guest for a late-night comedy show. As the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, the courtly Washington lawyer is a leading expert on campaign finance law -- not the kind of material that generates a lot of laughs. So the fact that he's appeared seven times on "The Colbert Report" in the last year, helping host Stephen Colbert set up his own "super PAC" as part of a mischievous political parody, underscores an unexpected development in the 2012 presidential race: Super PACs have seized the zeitgeist.

Bill Miller, the man who helped build the U.S. Chamber of Commerce into one of the country's most influential political machines, will leave his post as political director to become a partner in the Washington office of the London-based public relations firm the Brunswick Group. His departure means that the Chamber will be without one of its most skilled political hands on the eve of the 2012 election. Although his move has not been officially announced, Chamber officials said Wednesday afternoon they will continue the aggressive political activism that Miller helped to develop.

Offering specious arguments about free speech and intimidation, Republicans are trying to derail an executive order by the Obama administration that would shed light on the political activities of government contractors. The order would require them to disclose any contributions they make to organizations that engage in political advertising, including the Chamber of Commerce and the shadowy groups known as 501c(4)s. In that way voters would know who was behind advertisements by groups with vague or innocuous names.

A political action committee formed by the California Chamber of Commerce has spent more than $3.8 million in recent weeks to defeat the Democratic candidate for insurance commissioner, Assemblyman Dave Jones of Sacramento. Almost three-fourths of the PAC's money for the final campaign push has come from the insurance companies that would be regulated by the winner of the race between Jones and Republican Assemblyman Mike Villines of Clovis. Meanwhile, political committees backed largely by trial lawyers spent at least $420,000 on radio ads during the same period to support Jones and bash Villines.

In a move that opponents label "plain and simple blackmail," alcoholic beverage interests have threatened to cancel their political advertising with broadcasters who give free air time to promoters of Proposition 134, a measure that would increase taxes on beer, wine and liquor. The threat was contained in a letter from Greenstripe Media, a firm hired by the industry-financed Taxpayers for Common Sense to buy radio time.

Sifting through a sheaf of computer printouts and television schedules, Jamie Sterling and his staff finally came up with the answer for Vice President Al Gore: golf. This weekend's Doral-Ryder Open golf tournament, to be precise. "It's a smart buy," said Sterling, the media analyst who chooses which television programs are best for Gore's campaign ads. "Golf is an older-skewing sport," meaning the viewers are also reliable voters. "It's not that expensive," he added.

At the last minute, House sponsors of a bill designed to shed light on who is funding political advertisements have eliminated a serious objection to the legislation: that it provided special treatment for the National Rifle Assn. Now the House should pass the bill. Known as the DISCLOSE Act, the legislation is a response to a wrongheaded Supreme Court decision that came down in January allowing corporations to use their treasury funds to sponsor election-related ads. The bill would require corporations, unions, advocacy groups and some nonprofits to disclose the names of their top donors.