Signals and noises
So I read a chapter of “Freakonomics” in high school that made the argument that greater campaign spending doesn’t actually result in an advantage in votes- greater spending is just an indicator of other strong candidate factors such as incumbency, high name recognition, experience fund-raising and a network of supporters who donate. But, like many young millennial, I am still concerned about the massive amounts of money spent on political advertising.
Although more common to my parent’s generation, the political season comes predictably with an onslaught of political attack ads and statements from candidates. In the age before Netflix and Citizens United, the television ad was the primary forum for my parent’s to see political ads. One thing I’ve noticed this caucus season is that despite a changing world, the candidates seem to be taking the path more traveled when it comes to spending ad money.
My usual response of ads is critical, because I’ve already decided on a candidate, but compel me to question what the real goal of these messages are trying to do- as a window to what the candidates are thinking. Due to the hilariously broken state of SuperPAC law, Ted Cruz has to post awkward videos of his family publicly on Facebook to give footage for ads. In a world where young people are immune to all this noise, what is the signal?
Take the perspective of a 24 year old male college graduate. How is a campaign going to get an ad in front of my eyes? During the week, my primary entertainment options come through my Xbox- Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc. I only really watch network TV during the weekends for NFL football games. Other than that, I spend my time occasionally listening to Iowa Public Radio and scrolling through Facebook and Twitter.
So far, the ads that I’ve seen during football games pretty much what you’d expect. That is, I see Jeb Bush ads all the time and they seem weak and desperate, or I see Marco Rubio ads that are either ominous vague statements by Rubio or attacks on other candidates. While this type of strategy isn’t unusual, it speaks to how slow tactics are to change.
The conventional messaging must be something along the lines of this:
- The world is a scary place
- The candidate is a serious leader
- Other candidates don’t have the qualities to be a serious leader
- Support this candidate
I make this observation due to the heightening nature of the national security focus of the campaign, which has moved the traditional focus on real issues like immigration, wealth inequality, and climate change, to a focus on who we’re bombing, how many bombs we’re dropping, and how we can increase bomb production. The crisis with Islamic State has all but overwhelmed the Republican nomination- they can hardly talk about anything else.
The thing is- they’re likely preaching to the choir. The real targets of these ads, I’m guessing people who fit my father’s demographics, already agree with many of the statement in the ads, expect the character depictions of the candidates. Largely, I think these dollars spent on ads constitute a huge waste of money. All these ads really do is get name recognition out there. For example, when I spoke to my grandfather over the holidays he asked me what I thought about “that casino boy” (Trump) and Rubio. While getting name recognition is great, it doesn’t compel Iowans to show up on caucus day.
So while massive fundraising goes on to plaster our screens, I suspect much of it is wasted money. Presumably, it goes into the pockets of Iowa’s media giants, but is our news reporting system in Iowa that much better because of it? What Iowans, and especially young Iowans, want out of a candidate is an expression of values on specific issues. Rather than “look at me, I’m good the other guy is bad”, political ads that come out by defining a problem issue and expressing a solution to that issue resonate better with young Iowans. We see through the bluster. What we really value is the specifics, the elbow grease that gets a specific job done. As young people, we are already quite well aware of how much trouble the world is in, and how we’re going to be tasked with cleaning it all up. While candidates like Trump have a lot of bluster and personality, they say almost nothing about how they’re going to do anything. What we value isn’t being sold a personality- we want a leader who has vision and a plan.These are things that motivate young people to get off their couch in February.
