Politics in the USA: communication methods?

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

These days, our european media are intensively talking about the methods american parties are using in terms of promotion and communication

i would guess ouur french media take pleasure making fun / condescending these american savages.

what is the reality ?

- these republican tv ads in whatever state where they tell the story of the democract opponent using tax payers money to call erotic phone numbers?
- saying some black democrat candidate was at a playboy party, and having a skanky blond woman on tv sayin " hey, mr. xxxx , call me, you're so hot " ... all that in a serious political tv ad.
- these automatic phonecalls pretending to be party XYZ and being obnoxious ....


and what's your opinion, simply on advertisment for politics? i mean, i know you guys have parties with balloons and rock music during political rallies .....

is politics really not that serious? or these are just lone case of wierdo states?


what are the other crazy cases?

[pasnow]

Those are the most "extreme" but all are pretty close to being as bad. My biggest problem with them is they're always attacking the other candidate, and never promoting what they themselves do so great.

A republican airs an ad saying "This democratic candidate is for raising taxes, and wants your tax money to help pay for abortions, and voted for a bill to not fund extra money to our troops."

Then the democrat airs an ad saying "This republican voted to give himself a pay raise, and opposes stem cell research which could help critically ill children with diseases, and has missed work 119 days in the past two years."

But the problem is, the claims are so distorted. I read somewhere where a bill was proposed to fund money to give troops extra protection (bulletproof vests). But included in the bill was a raise in tax for something (I think it had to do with Net Nuetrality or something). And these bills must be introduced for this reason, because if you vote for it, you are "for raising taxes" but if you are against it, you are "against providing bulletproof vests for our troops". So it's really a no win situation, and you really can't vote simply from what you see on these commercials.

And the ads air EVERY commercial break. Here in PA we have a governor race, Senator race, and House of Representatives race. That's 6 candidates airing commercials. Plus 2 other smaller races, which brings it to 10. If each only runs 1 commercial an hour, that's 10 of these commercials per hour

Anyway, hope this helps a little bit, and yeah, in general they are pretty laughable.

[Skeba]

I've been wondering that myself (as have many I'm sure).

It would appear that (a large majority of the) American public likes the two party system. It's more clear to choose one team and support the team rather than the ideologies behind the 'players'. And then the players try and grab as many supporters as possible by doing neat magic tricks and making the other team look bad. From outside it looks more like a show from time to time than an actual _political_ campaign.

And the few times that there are actual debates, they tend to turn into something irrelevant, and the message is once again lost.

I think it was about the 2004 election that a certain comedian commented on the advertising for the campaigns being just rediculous. He took (a made up I hope) example of animals in the commercials with a voiceover going "do you want be eaten by a pack of wolves"... and since the add was doing pretty well the other party tried something similar with a "do you want to be an eagle or an austridge". This puts the voter in a tough jam because while austridges are cool, you most definately want to be an eagle so that the wolves don't get your ass. Just a little piece of comedy, but it pretty well illustrates how little the advertisments can actually be about politics.

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

It would appear that (a large majority of the) American public likes the two party system. It's more clear to choose one team and support the tea

funny.
cause, in these times of presidential elections in france, some analysts have been saying that, what is slowing down france is the lack of clear bi-party system.
our right is a little leftie
our left is a little bit rightie
some extreme left too (communism spices in our left program, and i like it .... i know, communists ... shockin )

so there is no clear, simple choice.
and apparently, if there were we would advance faster.

if left was really left, and not try to do a mixed recipee, and if the right was clearly right, things would get done.

i don't know.

[Skeba]

Advance where?

And in what areas. Things would get done? I'm not so sure about that. Now it would seem that there's at least some common ground. What would happen if the point of the other party is to do nothing but opposite of what the other one does?

[pasnow]

It's a two party system alright... One's an idiot, and the other one's worse!


Seriously though, I remember hearing that our government, whether intentionally or not, is not set up for anything more than a two party system. For pass a law, a bill (i think) must get more than 50% of the house & Senate vote, then the President. Well, since party's are so partisan, if we had 3 party's in office, most bills introduced would only get votes from their party, ie @ 30% of the vote, so nothing would ever get passed. Even if it did there' a greater chance the President would not agree with that parties reasoning and not sign of on it. If he declines it the only way to veto it is to get 66% of the vote. Again, not likely in a 3 party system.

[The Dog]

The american public has ZERO attention span.  most are too lazy to read about their candidates or find out more information.  we want our info contained in neat, quick, witty 30 second ad spots and easy to remember catch phrases.

Every election year there is a news story about whether or not the political commercials are "going to far". 

American politics is all about image, not the issues.  If you can smear your opponents reputation, you will win.  Its sad but true.

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

oh man, i thought our french witty medias were just taking the extreme example and that didnt portray the reality.

anyway. to skeba

advance where? anywhere.
the blockage is that to fight any big issue (unemployment, security, retirement funding, globalisation ...)
things must get done.
for exemple get a clear strong socialist reform to help unemployed people get a new job
or start a real strong liberal system to let the companies do what they want ...


as much as i am socialist, i'd rather have a strong Rightwing party leading france to point A in a dynamic way. than having a weak so-so left or right party going to point ABC.


on the side, some global issues must disappear from the political solutions: globalization, sustainable dev., new energies .... these are not political issues, these are facts, constraints we have to play with.