WITH THE 2006 midterm elections past us, America can breathe a collective sigh of relief, re-order its government and stop hitting the mute button during commercials. That's right, America, we are now free from the barrage of obnoxious campaign advertisements both candidates subjected us to in the days and weeks past. In three hours of football on Sunday, for example, Fox probably ran 20 to 25 campaign ads for a whole slew of candidates. The most disturbing thing was that despite the sheer number of commercials, not one of the ads was positive and intended to demonstrate the capabilities or qualifications of the candidate; rather, all of them seemed focused on destroying the reputations of other candidates. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties are equally guilty of this, but this bipartisan bashing points to more troubling issues within our political system in which where sensationalism counts for more than records.
Politics has never been a clean arena. Attacks on the integrity of opponents have long been central in the push for public office, and no one denies their effectiveness. But when the entirety of one's campaign consists of smearing the other candidate with alleged misdeeds or past actions it becomes a problem. For example, Virginia residents heard to no end about George Allen's "macaca" comment and the resulting aspersions cast on his character. Voters were inundated with descriptions of Jim Webb's allegedly racy literary endeavors. We discovered that George Allen supports George W. Bush. We heard from both sides that Jim Webb worked in the Reagan administration (whether or not they got along remains ambiguous). We learned so much about the supposedly negative things that candidates have done, it is almost sickening.
But campaign ads told us very little about what really matters: where candidates stood on major issues. Theoretically, knowing the views of a candidate for office on those issues most salient to the voters is the most important part of representative democracy.
Some campaign ads projected a rough view of what candidates hope to do. According to Jim Webb's TV ads, he supports making college more affordable, making health care more widely available, lowering taxes for middle class families and veterans, and what seems to be the amorphous catchphrase of his campaign: the ever-ambiguous "change." According to ads from the Allen camp, he supports the war in Iraq, along with "shared values, lower taxes, a better education for our children, and a safer, stronger, America."
All is well and good. But both candidates' ads were neither descriptive of the methodology that the candidate would pursue, nor were they focused on the issues. Rather, their focus lay in taking shots at the opponent and then briefly commenting on the candidate's own stance. Out of nine commercials available on Jim Webb's Web site, seven of them begin with direct criticism of George Allen. Allen fares slightly better; of 17 videos on his campaign website, only seven directly attack Jim Webb (although one holdover goes after Chuck Robb). While with effort one can determine exactly what candidates plan to do on prominent issues, it would be better if instead of spending their time and money slamming the other candidate, each of these men would siphon some of each off and explain their political stances to uninformed voters.
The sad thing is that both candidates have more than enough money to do so. According to the PoliticalMoneyLine.com, through Oct. 18, George Allen took in over $13 million to spend on his campaign; Jim Webb received about half as much. Together, candidates for Virginia's Senate seat spent over $18 million on their races. Who knows how much of this money has been simply thrown away in political sniping between candidates?
Maybe what we can learn from Jim Webb's victory is that negative advertising works. Maybe it is easier to destroy someone else's credibility than create your own. Maybe it works because Americans are lazy and do not want to bother to find out what is right about a candidate; we only want to know what is wrong with him or her. Maybe it works because it appeals to all of our worst instincts, and it is much easier to build up moral revulsion for a person than respect for him. Maybe all of this is true, but something is wrong with our political system when one views the day after the election with eager expectation simply because all the mudslinging will be gone.
Robby Colby's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at rcolby@cavalierdaily.com.
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