So I’m attending this campaign and elections seminar in Los Angeles today and tomorrow. Lots of info on campaign strategy and planning and such. But then, Fred Davies is up there, showing his advertising campaigns for various candidates. And all I can think is, good grief. The people in this room work hard to create good campaigns for politicians they believe in, and this guy can destroy their work in a few seconds worth of a television commercial. The guy doing the talk on direct mail can destroy their hard work in a couple of seconds worth of a malicious mailer.
Most people won’t ever get to meet a candidate, yet form an impression of them based on what they see in a couple of seconds from a mailer or a minute of a commercial. And the legislation is all being written by the lobbyists these days, anyway. What have the candidates become other than a product to sell, or a competitor’s product to tear down?
We need to rethink things, somehow. We need to get people to start thinking about how political decisions affect their lives, to stop thinking it doesn’t matter who is in offiice, to understand the political process. But we also need to start dmanding more from our legislators – that they go back to their jobs, instead of being foils for marketing campaigns and tools of lobbyists.
I come at this from the grassroots. But in seeing how the “professionals” operate, I think it is clear that we’re in bigger trouble than I even imagined…… yeah, I laughed at some of Davies pieces. They are funny. But they shouldn’t be deciding the way people think and the way they vote. And how we change that, I don’t know.
No Responses