Involving Voters to Fight Money in Politics

I have been reading “Dark Money,” the very good new book by Jane Mayer that details how the Koch Brothers and other wealthy conservatives have put together an effective coordinated national network to influence elections. The Kochtopus plans to spend $900 million this election cycle, more than the Republican or Democratic parties.  It’s not just the amount that matters–when you read the story of the 2010 elections, for instance, it’s striking how even small amounts of money, strategically targeted, often made the difference in a close House race or, even more, at the State level.

So far it seems to me that the movement to fight political corruption has focused entirely on the supply side, not the demand side.  It’s been about changing laws regulating how much can be given to candidates or spent on political advertising, and increasing transparency so the public knows what individuals or organizations are providing support. You do this by putting together new laws, getting people elected who back them, and by creating a mass movement to protest and vote for these candidates and put pressure on elected officials.

This is a hard sell because it asks people to act indirectly; hardly anyone is immediately affected by campaign finance rules. It’s complicated and wonky and requires collective action. Is there anything you can ask citizens to do immediately, themselves, to change this dynamic? I think there might be and I wish very much that some of the organizations dedicated to this issue would explore it.

What I have in mind is a campaign to educate people about political advertising and encourage them to ignore it. When you look at how money affects elections, it’s clear that the main vector is through television advertising. Advertising is expensive—it costs big money to buy airtime for ads, to pay the consultants and advertisers to prepare the ads, and to pay the pollsters and political advisers to identify the issues and themes to put in the ads. In a fast-moving campaign, ads need to be changed and updated frequently. Money does lots of other things too, but TV advertising is usually by far the most expensive part of a campaign. Therefore, it’s the need to pay for TV that is perhaps the single biggest reason politicians need to raise money; and it’s the effectiveness of these ads that makes them irresistible to politicians and to outside groups seeking to influence the process.

It would seem possible to inoculate many viewers against being manipulated by advertising, especially the kinds of negative and misleading ads that are often the specialty of PACs and issue groups not officially connected to candidates. An educational effort might include a bipartisan appeal from well-known politicians (Al Gore and John McCain?) who could say, here’s how this game works—I should know!—and here’s why you should ignore what you see on TV.  Tell people not to watch, or at a minimum to mute the sound (I see a big MUTE button as the symbol of this effort), because these advertisers are very skilled at getting inside your head and your best defense is to avoid the message altogether. Don’t assume you can’t be manipulated! Explain that ads with the actual candidate explaining his/her position, and clearly paid for by the candidate, are OK; but any other ‘issue’ ad or ad that is paid for by some other organization should be shunned.

A good way to make the case is by comparing political advertising to other types of advertising. Does anyone imagine that advertisements for cars, or beer, or drugs are telling us the truth? Or are they carefully crafted attempts to mislead us by playing on our lust, our fears, our greed? Haven’t you watched Mad Men, we should ask the American people; think of armies of advertising experts sitting around drinking martinis and figuring out how to sell you on a candidate. Explain the advertising tricks that are commonly used. Emphasize that the people making these ads are cynics who have contempt for voters and think they can be manipulated. Make the picture as repulsive as possible.

This could be spread by op-eds, by community meetings, even by TV ads (yes, the irony…), any way to get the basic argument into people’s heads and change their behavior. It could be supplemented with a pledge that individual voters can make, the “I will not be manipulated” or the “I MUTE for political ads” pledge, with buttons and bumper stickers and Facebook pages and Twitter handles. Individuals and families could display this pledge on their cars, in their homes, and online as a sign to politicians that any money they spend on this sort of advertising will be wasted, and a warning to friends and neighbors that passing on rumors or supposed ‘facts’ derived from political advertising will be met with skepticism. It will also make it harder for candidates to try and have it both ways by benefiting from over-the-top attack ads, while trying to seem not responsible.

And a further step: a pledge to vote for the candidate who does the LEAST amount of objectionable advertising. An organized watchdog group could track advertising for particular candidates and publicize how much (how many ads, how many minutes of ads, how much money on ads) is associated with candidates in each race. Those who make the “Less is More” pledge would commit to voting for the candidate who has had the least amount of unsourced advertising, or perhaps the least amount of TV advertising period. I see hundreds of people showing up at rallies with signs saying “Less is More, and I Vote”.

Candidates could make a similar pledge to reject all outside advertising and messaging (recognizing that under current law, they may not be able to stop all of it). A promise not to invade people’s living rooms would be well-received in many primary states and in the battleground states that get saturated with advertising in October and November.

It is probably true that even the best campaign of this sort would only affect a minority of voters. But in many races that’s enough. TV advertising campaigns now may only shift a few thousand votes, and campaigns are often targeted at very specific demographics. If a counter-campaign can cut into their impact and make large amounts of TV advertising a measurable negative for more voters, Big Money will have to worry more and more that their spending will backfire.