In defense of political advertising, Part 1

Theodore Sturgeon famously asserted, “ 90 percent of everything is crud.”

Those in our industry who reject the very concept of political advertising are guilty, I think, of condemning the category for the sins of that 90%.

This is a common error. If you are inclined against any particular activity or endeavor, (pop music, video games, TV shows, advertising, whatever), there are oh so many easy targets out there to shoot at—90 percent of them within any given category, if Sturgeon is right, and I think he is.

But the fact that ten percent of any given activity is not crud refutes any categorical condemnation of that activity. Pop music isn’t bad per se. It’s just that most pop music is bad. Advertising isn’t bad per se. It’s just that most advertising is bad.

Critics of political advertising attack it from a different direction. Or at least they think they do. Generally, they don’t condemn advertising as a whole. After all, most of the most vociferous critics of political advertising are admen themselves. They simply feel that humans shouldn’t be commoditized and packaged as if they were beer.

It’s true that political candidates are not breakfast cereal or underwear. They are complicated humans who stand for far more than can be captured in a 30 spot or a direct mail flyer. And they affect people’s lives in sometimes profound ways, in contrast to toilet paper.

People who condemn political advertising argue that it’s wrong to sell a candidate as if he or she were just another household product to be hawked. Doing so belittles the candidate and demeans the political process, blah blah blah. (I must inject here, I’m not sure it is possible to belittle most candidates or to demean the political process. Aren’t they, respectively, self-belittling and self-demeaning?)

One problem with this argument is that this sound-bytey, superficial, packaged goods approach to selling a candidate isn’t necessary or inevitable. It’s just commonly used. Like 90 percent of the time.

It’s perfectly possible for political advertising to be responsible, respectful, thoughtful, to reflect the candidate’s complexity, represent his stance on issues of the day, just as any other form of communication he may choose to employ can. The fact that most candidates don’t use the avenue of advertising in this manner is not a condemnation of advertising, but of those candidates.

Next week, I will argue that the bias built into advertising isn’t a basis for criticizing political advertising. And that advertising’s job isn’t simply to sell things. For these reasons, political advertising is a perfectly legitimate, justifiable and reasonable option for political candidates to use.