Rocky Mountain News
Outside ads are part of political debate
Ag's idea to warn off outsiders just won't work
August 16, 2004
When Senate candidate Ken Salazar invited Republican rival Pete Coors to join him in asking out-of-state interest groups not to spend money on negative advertising, he was probably spitting into the wind.
There's no way to keep outsiders off the airwaves, and no way to control what they say. If there were, political free speech would be in even more trouble than it is already.
Salazar of course wasn't proposing a ban on outside advertising. He simply believes political campaigns have been degraded by the lurid claims and relentless negativity of interest-group ads, and that a united front by the candidates might deter their sponsors from producing them. Most Coloradans no doubt agree with Salazar's assessment of the ads' content. Who didn't grow sick of the TV spots two years ago in the Wayne Allard-Tom Strickland Senate clash?
Yet there are all sorts of problems with pious pronouncements against negative advertising, not least of which is: When does a negative ad truly cross the line? What one viewer might call an attack, another might say is merely clarifying the record or drawing a distinction between candidates. And if candidates don't clarify records or draw distinctions, they are left with little but glowing biography and generalized pap to put on the air.
Nor do attack ads always work. In fact, they often backfire, especially if a candidate hasn't first established a positive image of himself. The recent Republican Senate primary is a good example. Bob Schaffer didn't attract enough money to establish his own credentials in print or on the airwaves. So when an independent committee financed by his friends came in and launched ads suggesting Coors was pro-gay and favored teenage drinking, they weren't believable.
Like Salazar, we too wish candidates controlled a greater share of the political advertising; if nothing else, voters would know whom to blame for the worst excesses. Because misguided "reform" laws limit contributions to the candidates, however, it's inevitable that supporters will find other ways to get the word out. If we want to limit the politicking of outsiders, we should lift the contribution limits and let more money flow through the campaigns. Yet that isn't about to happen, and with control of the U.S. Senate at stake again this November, we are likely to see more outside advertising than ever.
Why should those groups, which after all represent the views of millionsof Americans, be asked to curb their tongues? "The idea of going to any group, whether it be a labor union or the chamber of commerce, and saying 'butt out' - I don't buy it," says former Sen. Bill Armstrong, who ran the independent committee that tried without success to help Schaffer. "It's still a free country."
Whether it's liberal moneybags George Soros, the AFL-CIO or conservatives like himself, "they're all part of the process," Armstrong says. "I don't think the country suffers from too much participation in the political process, but from too little."
If some groups have a disproportionate impact, maybe it's because too few other citizens care enough to get in the game.
