EDITORIAL: Look beyond the concept

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 11/5/6 | Editor

[SmithL]

THE 30-second commercials are coming fast and furious. Make oil companies pay their fair share of taxes! Get the corrupting influence of money out of politics! Make sure you're notified before a doctor performs an abortion on your daughter! Keep government from seizing your homes! Raise money for schools! Crack down on sex offenders! Tax smokers!

Ah, those initiatives. They all sound so appealing on those soft-focus television ads, with former President Bill Clinton waxing eloquent about California leading the way in the reduction of fossil fuels (Prop. 87) and the grieving family at the grave site of yet another smoker who might be alive if only the cigarette tax were another $2.60 a pack (Prop. 86).

All of the initiatives mentioned above (83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90) have earnest-sounding ballot titles and viscerally appealing commercials. Each should be rejected, in our view, after poring over the fine print and meeting with advocates and opponents of each.

Take Proposition 87. It sounds so fair and simple. Make oil companies pay a tax on the oil they pull out of the ground -- as they do in Louisiana, Alaska and even Texas -- to fund the development of cleaner-burning fuels. But Californians will be voting on more than a concept when they vote "yes" or "no" on Proposition 87. They will be voting on a 12,000-word measure that would become the law of the state. Among the laws it overrides are basic conflict-of-interest and competitive-bidding requirements.

Under Proposition 87, members of the new board who would be dishing out the $4 billion would not be prohibited from granting funding to their employers or even companies in which they personally held stock

...The barrage of Yes on 87 spots you see on TV are largely courtesy of Stephen Bing,

[yooling]

PROP. 85

Appealing pitch: Ensures that a parent will be notified before an abortion is performed on a girl age 17 and younger.

Deal breaker: Undermines privacy rights by forcing young women to go to court to avoid confrontations with parents who vehemently object to abortion.

WTF? They're kids! THEY'RE KIDS!

They answer to their parents not planned parenthood. UNGGGHH!

[MineralMan]

One thing I noticed about the RNC attack ads this year, that I think is a real mistake, is the repetition of the name of the Democrat candidate.

Yes, they're saing that Suse. P. Candidate is awful, in whatever way they can. The ads go something like this.

Susie P. Candidate will raise your taxes.
Susie P. Candidate doesn't support the troops.
Susie P. Candidate is endorsed by Liberal organizations.
Susie P. Candidate is pro-abortion and anti-life.

What the listener ends up hearing, much of the time, on the car radio or on the TV, though is more like:

Susie P. Candidate blah...blah...blah.
Susie P. Candidate blah...blah...blah.
Susie P. Candidate blah...blah...blah.
Susie P. Candidate blah...blah...blah.

I'm not sure such ads are effective. It used to be that you never really mentioned the actual name of the candidate.