You see it on TV, in magazines and on billboards when your driving down the street. It’s that crazy time again of political campaigning.
During campaigns, we always hear over and over again that your vote counts. Your vote can change the world. Yet for some odd reason voter turnout is still down. Maybe it’s the candidates, the issues or maybe, just maybe, it’s those negative campaign advertisements candidates use that have confused and annoyed voters to the point that they don’t want to vote or don’t even know who to vote for anymore.
Years ago, negative campaign ads were highly uncommon, but it seems that in this day and age, most if not all political advertisements on television, billboards and in newspapers, attack candidates’ opponents rather than giving emphasis to his or her own strengths.
Trevor Hackett, a student at Salt Lake Community College, shared his thoughts about negative campaigning.
“It’s not ethical at all. The candidates focus now more on their rivals than they do themselves,” he said.
“It helps opens my eyes more about the candidates, but overall it doesn’t work for me,” Hackett said when being asked if the negative advertisements will affect his voting in any way.
One of the bigger problems associated with the negative ads is that people become confused about the delegates as far as what is the actual truth and what is just lies. What is even more concerning is with all the negative ads going around, a good number of voters often get so confused and annoyed that they just wont even vote at all. Rather than convincing voters to support one candidate or another, negative campaigning reinforces the idea that all politicians and government officials are dishonest, corrupt and worry only about themselves rather than the people they are supposed to be serving.
“The candidate who is putting the negative ads out there for everyone to see, in my opinion just makes them look even more dishonest and untrustworthy. It’s definitely not someone who I would want to vote for. I think it is highly unprofessional. I do not want somebody who is supposed to be regarded as a leader and an example to us, to be demoralizing to others in that matter in attempt to make themselves look better,” said student Carlina Anderson.
Everywhere we look we are being bombarded with political advertising. In the past couple of weeks, like it is every two years for us, we the American public will be hit from all angles of political advertisements. The amount of money being spent on political advertising these days is unbelievable. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being poured into radio, TV, magazines, billboards and into the news to persuade and manipulate us to cast a vote for a specific candidate come election time.
So when you see the next negative campaigns ad, it would be wise to do your own personal research about each candidate, rather than taking the negative connotations and assuming them to be truth. By doing so we can assure ourselves that we will be electing the best possible candidate for all of our cities, states and nation.