An Ad War

The WSJ reports that the GOP has released an ad war. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203911804576653603558157010.html As GOP presidential hopefuls attempt to win their party's nomination, voters can expect to see a dramatic increase in political advertising. Some advertisements are persuasive such as the popular Cain ad that we viewed in class. These ads are not meant to be informative. As Mueller stated in section 20.2 the purpose of persuasive advertising is to avoid isolating voters. Candidates want to appeal to the majority of voters. Since these ads do not mention specific policies, voters are more likely to focus on the candidate's personal characteristics they can relate to. Persuasive campaigning seeks to reach out to all groups to increasing the number of votes received on election day.

The second type of advertisements are called informative ads. Mueller claims that informative advertising increases the probability that some groups will vote for a candidate while decreasing the probability that they will vote for another candidate. Negative ads could be classified as informative ads because they are more likely to be factually accurate compared to persuasive ads. They can also prompt voters to obtain more information about a candidate's policy platform. Recent GOP TV ads have been attacking the president and other GOP candidates. For example one ad by Rick Perry called Mitt Romney a flip flopper who was responsible for Obamacare. Mueller believes this is common in campaign ads because candidates will attempt to distinguish themselves from the other candidate and claim that they represent the wishes of the median voter. They also want to distinguish themselves to attract contributions and enhance their chances of winning. However, they don't want to distance themselves too much because they could also lose the support of voters. The Perry campaign has created online video ads that have criticized Obama by implying that he is responsible for our economic troubles. At the end of the video, Rick Perry announces his candidacy and says "It's time to get America working again." These negative campaign ads are perhaps healthy for democracy because they encourage voters to seek more information, like Romney's position on healthcare. They also support Mueller's theory that political ads serve to persuade and inform voters.