"Mega-blitz of ad spending makes it easier for candidates to lie"
Mega-blitz of ad spending makes it easier for candidates to lie
By Paul Waldman at the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/10/16/mega-blitz-of-ad-spending-makes-it-easier-for-candidates-to-lie/?tid=rssfeed
"SNIP........................
The important thing here is that all of this spending makes real accountability a lot harder. The candidates know that any forum where they might actually be held accountable will inevitably be drowned out by all the ads. For instance, in a debate yesterday Cory Gardner had to endure a grilling by a couple of obviously exasperated reporters over the fact that Gardner keeps denying that the Personhood bill he sponsored in Congress actually does what it says it does. He bobbed and weaved, and the footage looks really bad. But is Gardner particularly worried? I doubt it. Hes up by a couple of points in the polls, and how many people actually watched that debate? He has thousands of opportunities to get his message out his way.
Nor, I suspect, is Mitch McConnell worried that hell pay a price for trying to fool people in Kentucky into thinking that you can repeal the Affordable Care Act root and branch, but theyll still get to keep Kynect, the hugely successful ACA exchange. Voters dont understand the distinction, and the media arent helping them get it. In the post-Citizens United world, theres little to fear, so long as you and your allies have the money.
That isnt to say that the media couldnt impose some accountability if they truly wanted to. But it would take an agreement that a particular issue is important enough to warrant intense, repeated attention. And that, apparently, is something they only do for things that have little or no substantive importance, like whether a candidate will say who she voted for.
Thirty years ago, George H.W. Bushs press secretary Peter Teeley was asked by a reporter about a lie Bush had told during his debate with Geraldine Ferraro. You can say anything you want during a debate, and 80 million people hear it, he said. And if reporters then correct the falsehood? So what? Teeley responded. Maybe 200 people read it or 2,000 or 20,000.
.........................SNIP"