Posted on 01/31/2012 11:37:42 AM PST by Red Steel
Windermere, Fla. – Florida voters say they don't like all the negative advertising they've been subjected to over the last 10 days, but have different opinions about how much of an impact it has had.
At a polling center in Windermere, Fla., a suburb of Orlando, Jeff Tepper says he would support a limit on how much candidates can spend.
"We want the people to decide the election, not money," says Tepper, a supporter of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich has been heavily outspent by his rival for the GOP presidential nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Romney and independent groups supporting him have spent about $20 million on mostly negative ads in the Sunshine State.
[Florida Is Do or Die for Newt Gingrich.]
"You can't have somebody spend $20 million and somebody else spends $2 million. It doesn't make it a fair fight," Tepper says, adding that they do have an impact and some voters "get turned off, there's no question."
Aaron Hassen of Windermere, who voted for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, says the media blows the importance of negative advertising out of proportion and that most people ignore it.
"My take on negative advertising is we've seen it in Florida year after year for decades now and it's nothing new," he says. "So at this point you begin to tune things out. What's kind of comical is how the news media--it becomes a circus for them, they get so involved and it's this big drama that goes on."
Hassen says the average voter like him "just kinds of sits back and laughs and we actually look at the issues."
[U.S. News Debate Club: Are Super PACs Harming U.S. Politics?]
Another Gingrich supporter from Windermere named Kim, who declined to give her last name, is specifically critical of Romney.
"I guess I don't like the cutthroat advertising I've been seeing lately," she says. "I understand you get mad, but you don't bring it out in commercials. You don't want to see that come the general election time either."
Like Tepper, she says it's better to focus on the issues.
"Just tell me what you got; I don't want to hear this person did this and that," Kim says. "Get over it. It's been how many years? We all did something in our past."
Maybe every ad ought to be required to say what cumulative campaign spending to the time of its showing has been, or something like that. (”This ad at the $20,000,000 mark in Florida has just brought you another Mitt smear upon Newt.”) CFR was tried, and failed. Caps aren’t the way to ensure honest context. Open information is.
Well, My hope is Flordians what to know the truth and are disgusted with the lies.
I guess you Florida voters will be showing us what the impact has been.
Most people claim they don't like negative ads, yet they seem to do well for the candidate putting them forth.
And in all of that, just one ad has had a positive message of why I should vote FOR him.
The others have all been why I should vote AGAINST Newt, except for one, uno, (1), "that's right amigo just one stinkin' mailer" why I should vote AGAINST Santorum.
Hassen says the average voter like him “just kinds of sits back and laughs and we actually look at the issues.”
If this were true wouldn’t Romney be in big trouble?
Well, who gets paid all those millions??
TV stations, radio stations — the MEDIA.
They LOVE IT.
No wonder it continues. It’s a vicious payoff cycle.
There is nothing wrong with so-called “Negative” ads as long as they are factual and true. They can be informative and serve a positive purpose - as long as they are factual, true and stay away from personal attacks having to do with race, religion, etc.
If the ads are not true it is slander.
Slanderous ads do not belong in a campaign; the originator should be dragged into court on an expedited basis, given a fast but fair trial and the guilty should be banned from politics forever.
Too bad the republicans didn’t have then guts to run some very hard hitting, factual “Negative” ads against Obama four years ago.
Yes I was. I considered an insult to my character, integrity, and intelligence because the Romney ads assumed that I was too stupid to look up the facts for myself. Sorry Mitt, you lied to me and I won't vote to put you in any political office.
People in Florida are just like the rest of us. I change the channel, turn off the radio and pay zero attention to them attacking each other. If they would say how they will beat BO, talk about all the BO scandals and talk about how BO skirts the Constitution, I would pay attention, but they don’t. Just keep talking about what so and so did 20 years ago. Let’s talk about what BO was doing 20 years ago.
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