Branding Politix, Messaging, wispundits • March 27th, 2008

Issue ads in the crosshairs

by Chris Lato

The new Government Accountability Board is flexing its muscle, rolling up its sleeves and planning to start cracking down on those horrid issue ads that will be the downfall of our democracy. That darn Gableman-Butler Supreme Court race ruined it for everybody.

The Wisconsin State Journal breaks it down here. But here is the passage that should raise a few eyebrows:

Deborah Goldberg, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center who urged the board Wednesday to regulate issue ads, said the board could consider:

- Requiring disclosure of all individuals, corporations and groups that fund issue ads.

- Declaring that ads discussing the character and qualifications of a candidate don’t fit the definition of issue ads and instead advocate for or against a candidate.

- Declaring all ads in state Supreme Court races are advocacy ads, thus requiring the disclosure of donors for ads in those races only.

OK, I’m no legal expert, but here are a few questions:

· Who determines the definition of an issue ad? I thought those rules were written already?

· Literally, how will the disclosure thing work? Will the end of each ad have an announcer that rattles off names like he’s reading the rules and regulations at the end of one of those Wisconsin Lottery ads?

· Why declare that only Supreme Court ads are advocacy ads? Isn’t that kind of arbitrary?

I have no idea how the GAB plans to negotiate through the minefield of existing state and federal court rulings on this very topic. But it doesn’t take a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

The GAB issues crackdown potentially runs afoul of the law. The self-appointed good government types either hail it as a step in the right direction or damn it for not going far enough. A court challenge ensues. It drags on for many months, if not years. Wash, rinse, repeat if necessary.

Here’s what gnaws at me about this. All this hand-wringing condescendingly assumes that voters are dolts who do no homework on their own, and can be led by the nose by some negative ad. Sure, maybe that’s true for some people, but I’d rather believe voters are generally smart and engaged enough to pay attention, do a little digging if necessary, and come to their own reasoned conclusions…especially if they’re going to bother to vote in a spring election. I mean, all this talk is generating a lot of attention on a race, and that may help drive turnout, and that’s a good thing…right?

And, yes, plenty of folks will be voting along ‘partisan’ lines in Tuesday’s Supreme Court race, even though the races are officially non-partisan (wink wink, nudge nudge).

Also, candidates sweat about losing control of their campaign, but they can use this as an opportunity. Decry the ads, pass on the opportunity to comment, turn the reporter’s question about those evil issue ads immediately back to your campaign, your platform, your agenda. You can still steer things back to your campaign and gain control. Put things in perspective and enforce strict internal message discipline, and all will be right with the world.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 10:48 am and is filed under Branding Politix, Messaging, wispundits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.