In case you have been stuck on Mars for the last few months, the election year hoopla is in full swing. Americans are being pounded daily by clips of speeches, ads and pundits telling anyone who will listen why their guy is better than the other guy. What's scary is that the election is still 200 days away!
Even so, the race to be the lesser of two evils is on, and as if the seemingly endless media coverage of anything related to the election has not been enough to saturate the usually politically apathetic American public, the political ads have been released earlier than ever. And so, let the mudslinging begin.
Already, millions upon millions of dollars have been spent by both presidential candidates, but especially by President Bush. Because of the amazing financial support the Bush campaign has received from its patrons - oops, I mean political supporters - it has easily been able to afford to release an onslaught of TV ads attacking John Kerry.
You've probably seen them. They're the ones that say, "John Kerry's record on the economy: troubling." The ad gives the impression that Kerry wants to tax the hell out of you. They say that he has supported raising taxes 350 times, that he opposed tax cuts for married couples and that he would raise taxes by $900 billion in his first 100 days in office.
Just looking at these ads, only a crazy person would vote for a liberal with such a "troubling" economic record. But how true are these attacks? Recall that these ads are coming from the same campaign that ridiculously accused John McCain of being opposed to breast cancer research funding during the 2000 primaries.
According to the political watchdog group, FactCheck.org, the only thing "troubling" about the ad is that it "recycles bogus claims, then tells only part of the story about Kerry's position."
Though it has become something of a company line for Republicans to use against Kerry, the group has found that the "350 times" that Kerry allegedly voted for "higher taxes" is not accurate. They say that the 350-votes-for-higher-taxes claim is "so off-base that it actually counts some Kerry votes for tax cuts as votes for 'higher taxes.'" It includes numerous times that Kerry voted for taxes to remain the same (instead of supporting Republican-proposed tax cuts), and it also counts those times Kerry voted to support alternative Democratic tax cut plans.
In fact, the group points out that the only "plan to raise taxes" that Kerry has made clear is his intention to increase taxes on the rich (those making $200,000 or more per year), while giving some additional tax breaks for "those further down the income scale."
Now, before any of you out there start flipping out and accuse FactCheck.org of being another left-wing propaganda machine, let me assure you that it is not. It is unbiased. In fact, there are several claims that Kerry has made during the campaign that have been debunked by the site. However, the most egregious statement by Kerry that it can find is not nearly as heinous as the lies and manipulations of Bush's ads. The worst thing it can find is one of Kerry's ads that states "Bush says shipping jobs overseas 'makes sense' for America." In actuality, it was Bush's Council of Economic Advisers that said that, not Bush himself.
The only legitimate claim of impropriety concerning political ads that Republicans really have is their disapproval of the negative ads being run against Bush by groups like Media Fund and MoveOn.org. Because these groups are not connected to the Kerry campaign, they can operate without falling under the restrictions of the Campaign Finance Reform laws passed recently. Combining their funds with the money raised by the Kerry campaign itself, Kerry essentially has enough cash to go toe-to-toe with Bush spending-wise.
This must irritate the hell out of the Republican National Committee, not so much because of the fact that it honestly does circumvent campaign finance laws, but because it didn't think of it first. I'm sure that if the law is not fixed to stop things like this, there will be about a dozen conservative groups like these within a year.
So what's a potential voter to do with these attack ads? Sadly, there's not much you can do except to research the claims being made or to stop trusting them altogether. Hopefully, both parties will cut back on the mudslinging ads if no one believes them. Then we can all just be subject to the emotional manipulations of positive ads instead of the outright lies of these attacks.
Brett Berry is a regional development sophomore who thinks people should watch debates, not ads. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.