From the Naperville Sun

A deluge of political advertising threatens our democracy
by Steve Macek
Published in the Naperville Sun 03/15/04

Remember how we were bombarded with campaign commercials during the
2002 elections? It seemed like you couldn't switch on the television
that fall without seeing some nasty negative attack directed at
gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan or one of those sappy, feel-good spots
for Judy Baar Topinka. Well, if you liked the 2002 campaign season,
you're going to love 2004.
Most analysts predict this year's elections will set new records for
political ad spending. In 2002, candidates spent more than $1 billion on
TV advertisements, roughly double what they spent during the 1998
off-year election. Experts at Sanford C. Bernstein and Co. project this
year candidates will shell out upward of $1.6 billion on ads, with about
$68 million of that going to TV stations in Illinois.
Unfortunately, the glut of campaign ads in recent years has not been
matched by a corresponding increase in campaign reporting. According to
the Center for Media and Public Affairs, time devoted to network TV news
coverage of state and federal races declined by 72 percent between 1994
and 2002. And a Project for Excellence in Journalism study conducted in
2002 found politics figured in less than 9 percent of the stories
covered by local TV news shows.
Our current system of political communication increasingly forces
voters to rely on 30-second TV spots for the majority of their
information about candidates and important election issues. And the
quality of our civic discourse is suffering as a result.
To begin with, it is impossible to advance anything even remotely
resembling a reasoned argument about a candidate in a 30-second TV ad.
Indeed, many campaign spots dispense with arguments and policy
statements altogether, opting instead to associate their candidate with
warm images of frolicking puppies, happy children and contented
families.
"These political ads are just not very informative," said Stephanie
Hughes, president of the Naperville League of Women Voters. "Often they
bring up issues that are irrelevant or meant to distract."
Not only do campaign ads dumb down the terms of political debate and
reduce nuanced policy positions to buzzwords and slogans, they also
drive up the cost of running for office.
"In campaigns where you're reliant on TV advertising, it is very, very
expensive," said Cindi Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political
Reform. "Some voices dominate and others you rarely hear."
Thanks in large part to the high price of TV advertising, it now costs
roughly $1 million to win a seat in the House of Representatives and
more than $7 million to win a seat in the Senate.
Running for president, meanwhile, is becoming obscenely expensive.
Already George W. Bush has amassed $150 million to fund his re-election
effort. The presumptive Democratic nominee, John Kerry, has raised some
$30 million of his own. Most of this money will be spent on TV
commercials that will be heavy on image and perilously thin on
substance. Just this past week Bush launched a series of attack ads that
make dubious claims about Kerry's tax plan and criticize his stance on
defense issues. Kerry will no doubt respond in kind. And we're not even
though March yet.
All, however, is not lost. A coalition of citizens groups and
politicians has been working in Washington to counteract the damaging
impact of TV advertising on our electoral process.
Last year, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.,
introduced the Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act, a bill that would help
ensure our political campaigns are driven more by ideas than by money
and carefully planned media buys. The proposed legislation would require
broadcasters to air two hours per week of candidate or issue-centered
public affairs programming in the month leading up to an election and
would give qualified candidates free vouchers for the purchase of
political advertisements on television and radio. While not perfect, the
bill would at least allow less-than-wealthy candidates an opportunity to
be heard and supply voters with more information about candidates and
issues than they currently receive.
At the moment, the Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act isn't very high on
anyone's agenda. But opinion polls show a vast majority of the public
supports giving free air time to political candidates. After they've
endured the coming deluge of political ads, the American people may be
even more willing to support such forward-thinking policy changes.
For more information about the Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act, visit
www.ilcampaign.org.
Steve Macek is an assistant professor of speech communication at North
Central College in Naperville.