Tag Archives: campaign advertising

Institutions IV: Electoral Process Victim of Anger, Isolation, Negativity

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  NOV 5, 2018

Up in North Dakota, Senator Heidi Heitkamp, in an uphill battle to keep her seat, personally apologized to women whose names were used in a campaign piece, which identified them as victims of “domestic violence, sexual assault, or rape.” Some on the list were not. Others had not given her campaign permission to expose them in that manner.

Out West in Southern California, Congressman Duncan Hunter was under heavy criticism for an ad that ties his opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, to terrorists. Campa-Najjar’s grandfather, Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, was involved in the plans to murder Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Germany in 1972. But Campa-Najjar is a Christian, son of a Mexican mother; he was a former White House aide, who had a security clearance from the Secret Service. He has denounced his grandfather’s actions, all according to the New York Times.

These are just a couple of the negative ads, which ran across the country in this campaign season, by Republicans and Democrats and everyone in-between. It has been estimated that negative ads increased by 60 percent in this cycle. Continue reading

Egregious Political Ad Harbinger for 2018

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  NOV 13, 2017

There’s a critical piece of business regarding the election of Democrat Ralph Northam as Governor of Virginia Nov.  7, that needs to be addressed. It has to do with a campaign ad.

The ad’s message and what it says about the state of American politics is important. Campaign advertising is one aspect of American politics that needs to be fixed, soon.

But before talking about today, it may be helpful to look back a half century to where it all began in the modern era on September 7, 1964.

That evening, NBC’s popular Monday Night at the Movies was on television. During a commercial break what came to be called the “Daisy Girl” advertisement ran for the first time.  Continue reading