ASHINGTON — Americans like to say they are not influenced by campaign commercials, but then many people plainly believe the attack ads that President Bush and John Kerry are hurling at each other. Posted on 05/13/2004 2:35:57 PM PDT by demlosers
ASHINGTON — Americans like to say they are not influenced by campaign commercials, but then many people plainly believe the attack ads that President Bush and John Kerry are hurling at each other.
Even people who say they learn nothing from the advertisements believe the claims made in them, the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey shows. At the same time, people are remarkably unfamiliar with the candidates' true positions — the stuff that hasn't been advertised much.
The Annenberg survey recently interviewed 1,026 adults in the 18 battleground states where the campaigns have been showing commercials since March. In those states, 61 percent of respondents believe Mr. Bush "favors sending American jobs overseas" and 56 percent believe Mr. Kerry "voted for higher taxes 350 times." Both of those statements have been repeated countless times in commercials — but neither is accurate.
A Kerry commercial contends that "George Bush says sending jobs overseas `makes sense' for America." Mr. Bush himself never said that, nor did he sign a document saying so. What he signed was a message accompanying the annual report of his Council of Economic Advisers, a report that asserted it made sense for the United States to buy goods and services from countries that produced them more cheaply than the United States could. Standard economic thought — although dumb politics — but Mr. Bush never said it.
Bush commercials, and the president himself, contend that Mr. Kerry "voted for higher taxes 350 times." But this list includes occasions when Mr. Kerry voted to keep taxes at existing levels, or supported lower tax cuts than Republicans sought. Now, he is calling for higher taxes only on people earning more than $200,000 a year while promising new cuts for middle-income families.
Most other dubious claims did not achieve majority acceptance in the battleground states. But one came close. Forty-six percent, including a majority of independents, agree that "John Kerry wants to raise gasoline taxes by 50 cents a gallon," a claim of Bush ads. Mr. Kerry vaguely endorsed the idea in 1994, but now opposes it.
In the survey, only 19 percent admit to learning something from commercials. But it's plain that is where Americans get many of their "factual" conclusions. The 46 percent who believe that Mr. Kerry wants to raise gas taxes could not have "learned" that from anything except Mr. Bush's ads. Nor could the 72 percent who say three million jobs have been lost since Mr. Bush became president (it is now fewer than two million) have drawn that conclusion from careful study of employment statistics. Democrats have sold the three million number so well that even a majority of Republican respondents believe it.
Along with the things they know that aren't so, voters don't know things that might matter. Sixty-six percent do not know that Mr. Bush favors extending the ban on assault weapons, and 68 percent do not know that he proposes cutting the federal deficit in half. Sixty-one percent do not know that Mr. Kerry wants to eliminate tax breaks for profits made overseas and use the money to encourage companies to invest their foreign earnings in the United States, and 44 percent do not know he wants to have the government help pay to get health insurance to all children and to help employers pay their workers' costs.
The election is still six months off. Maybe the campaigns will get around to advertising at least some of these policy positions — but only if they run out of fantasies about what the other guy stands for.
Adam Clymer, the former Washington correspondent for The Times, is the political director of the National Annenberg Election Survey.
Well, more people might believe the New York Times, but it's been caught lying too many times.
They, the leftist media, say that we are a divided country. That may be true. But considering the people that really vote in this nation (add the 5% dead democrats) and you leave much of the People that don't vote "regularly". If these People rise up they will put the left in a closet for a long, long time, ref. Nixon v. McGovern. As the left losses it's power they drive the People to the pols, and as that happens they lose terribly. Why, because the People know lies when they see them, and they don't like it.
Let's just keep fighting and let the leftists defeat themselves and bring down their propaganda machines. An idiot in a cave can see what the media agenda is by now, and if they continue a three year old could see it by October. Let them keep this up and we will see the greatest transformation of media "culture" since the 1890s.
The fact is that one of these statements is verifyable (Kerry's votes), while the opinion of Bush is much harder thing to "prove".
I'm sure someone counted votes of John Kerry where higher taxes were involved, and came up with 350. Certianly someone would disagree that this or that particular vote only incidentially raised taxes. I'm sure there's many ways to spin that and claim that the 350 number is false.
But how can you say that Bush want's to export jobs? I can't possibly imagine that he's ever said such a thing. Certianly that's not the official policy of the WH. But again, it's possible to spin some comment or political association into implying that he does in fact want to export jobs. But I don't believe it. I think that's complete BS.
But Kerry has in fact voted on some number of tax increases. I guarantee it. The only argument is, how many times was his vote "for" a tax increase. [I certianly don't think he ever voted for a tax reduction, except to cover his @ss]
Thru most of our history, 45-48% of the public would give this country to any despotic asshole that said they wanted it, simply because they said they wanted it. We are much more fortunate than we think.
Y'know...G_d ruined a PERFECT Clymer when he put teeth in Adam's mouth...
"How funny. I had to remind myself that "Clymer" is actually someones name."
I agree. It's kind of like realizing there really WAS a guy named Boycott and a guy named Quisling. Both of which terms, now that I think of it, should apply to Clymer, too.
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