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.

Wooing Hispanic voters was supposed to be a big component in this year's election, but according to a new study politicians are putting their money elsewhere. The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) said Spanish-language advertising is a small fraction of overall spending even in states with large Hispanic populations such as California and Florida. "Political commentators from both sides of the aisle have said repeatedly that 2012 is 'The year of the Hispanic voter,'" said Javier Palomarez, USHCC president.

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.

My column Wednesday lists some of the year's best and worst political advertisements so far. But don't take my word for it; go see them yourself. Here are three I'd recommend because they'll give you a distilled version of the presidential campaign so far: " Wake Up ," from Crossroads GPS, Karl Rove's independent group. It's a concise version of the core Republican argument: President Obama got our hopes up in 2008, but he let us down -- and it's time for a change. " Come and Go ," from the Obama campaign.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In this pivotal election year, fellow citizens, I give you a chilling vision of two Americas. One America is the swing states, the dozen or so states that don't fall into the Democratic or Republican camps and will ultimately decide the presidential election. Those unhappy states - they know who they are - are already being flooded with noisy political advertising, day and night. The other America, the happier America, is what political strategists call "safe states. " In these lucky places, television viewers are mostly safe from being inundated with presidential political harangues.

The New York Times' editorial page was shocked and appalled that, a mere two years after the Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court dealt summarily with a plea by the state of Montana that it revisit the issue of corporate spending on political campaigns. Whatever you think of Citizens United, the idea that the high court would upend such a fresh precedent is fantastic.  In upholding the Montana law, that state's Supreme Court was cruising for a judicial bruising. The doctrine of stare decisis is not absolute.

In its reckless Citizens United decision in 2010, the Supreme Court divided 5 to 4 in holding that corporations could spend unlimited funds to influence elections. But in the same case, eight justices agreed that it was constitutional for Congress to require disclosure of the identities of those who paid for political advertising. In a part of his opinion joined by every member of the court except Clarence Thomas, JusticeAnthony M. Kennedy wrote: "The 1st Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.

With anticipation building for the Supreme Court decision on President Obama's healthcare reform law, a survey has found that advertising purchases opposed to the law more than tripled those in support of it, $250 million to $76 million. The survey, conducted by Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group, shows just how dominant the anti-“Obamacare” movement's advertising purchases have been since the president's election in 2008. This year alone, opposition groups spent $14.2 million in their top 10 anti-reform markets, with a focus on heartland cities such as Cleveland, Columbus, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids and Detroit.

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.

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.

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.

The newspaper advertisement was designed to pull the heart strings, and to generate public outrage over back-room deal-making in Washington. On one side of the page, a group of lobbyists and politicians were shown huddling. On the other side, a group of small children, with sad and plaintive expressions, stared silently into the camera. Under the picture of the lobbyists, the ad said: "They get a $1.2-billion tax loophole."

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. ")