The current trend for political campaign ads is bringing an average person in front of the camera. They’ll talk about their values, how their favorite candidate matches them perfectly and then they will openly criticize the opponent.
And while it is sometimes effective, this technique is utterly annoying to anyone and everyone who has to watch the commercials run on repeat during election season.
Candidates might find more success if they just left us alone. If they quit the commercials, people might be forced to do their own research. They would get their facts straight from the source and form opinions based on reality, rather than the tainted testimony of a citizen whose incredibly circumstantial experience has brought them to a particular view.
In the case of the landmark restaurant Bill’s Barbecue in Richmond, Va., an anti-Obama advertisement misrepresented the conditions under which the restaurant failed. The small-business owner, Rhoda Elliot, blamed President Barack Obama for her hardship in a pro-Mitt Romney commercial.
The cause of the restaurant’s failure was not the Obama regime. Locals cite poor service and dated design as the source of the restaurant’s death according to an AOL.com report, all things which have nothing to do with Obama or his policies. In addition, several of the restaurant chain’s locations have health code violations with critical citations dating back to 2003. Clearly, this could not be the fault of our president.
It looks like Elliot wanted someone to blame for her lack of success, and who better than the man in charge? Give her a camera crew and some makeup, and a few days later her story has reached millions of people.
Crazy political ads dominate every form of media: television, radio stations, YouTube and more. It makes sense that campaigns are devoting time, money and energy into distributing shocking videos, but involving the general population in deceiving and underhanded schemes is unacceptable.
This is not to say Republicans are the only ones pushing forth misleading advertisements. Democrats have also created ads that smudge the facts and both parties frequently use a specific set of circumstances to make a general statement.
What is really striking about the Bill’s Barbecue incident is the restaurant owner’s willing participation in the deception. If democracy is to take place, the voters must be properly informed, and to do this we must stick together. Maybe blaming the economy made Elliot look better, but using Obama as a shield and ignoring her own faults has affected voters and, through them, the future of our country.
Unfortunately, we’ve come to expect this of the presidential campaign season. The continuous barrage of “he said, she said” and “the government took my money!” is now commonplace, and usually ignored.
All I can say is I’ll be one happy camper on Wednesday morning.
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