See through the manipulation of negative campaign ads

My dad told me the story about how the town got a new blacksmith. The master blacksmith used tongs to remove a horseshoe from the fire, swung it over the anvil and said to his apprentice, “When I shake my head, hit it.”

Of course my father was using the story as a teaching moment, making me think about using common sense to interpret what another person was really trying to say.

I knew the same thing applied when he found me fixing the brakes on my old Mercury Comet, and he said, “Use your head, and block the wheel.”

Every time I see a campaign commercial, I wonder if the candidate endorsing the message thinks the viewers are blithering idiots, unable to interpret what is actually being said.

It’s easy to interpret campaign commercials if you attach labels to the statements. Some of the most popular ploys are easy to spot:

▪ Half-truths are where the candidate only tells part of the story.

▪ Out of context is where a few words are plucked from an opponent’s previous statement, ignoring the other words that are inconvenient.

▪ Diversion is where the message is: Look at her, not at me.

▪ Labeling is like sticking a Post-it-Note on the back of an opponent that makes them easy to hate, as in “too liberal for Kentucky.” This also is used in conjunction with scare tactics: telling the listener “be afraid, very afraid, only voting for me can save you.”

You may agree and say: “So what? Politics is a dirty business, and the candidate that shovels the most dirt wins. The ends justify the means.”

You would be right. That’s the way it is, and the way it has been for a long time. It doesn’t mean it’s right, and we don’t have to accept it.

We don’t have to bury our heads in the sand and ignore that it’s a problem. I hate to think my hero, Tommy Jefferson, and his compatriots stooped so low, or hesitated to call out their peers for using such deceit.

The key to solving the problem of the dirty nature of politics is what behavioral scientists have proven; behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated.

It’s why we confidently put our dollar bills in the soda machine, because our experience has taught us to expect the reward of a soda can clunking into a chute. When a candidate hides behind the deception in campaign advertising and gets elected or re-elected, they get rewarded for the behavior. So they salivate like Pavlov’s dog and do the same thing the next time.

The flip side is that behavior that goes unrewarded gets extinguished. That’s why we won’t stick another dollar bill in the machine if we don’t hear the clunk following the first bill we inserted.

The answer to extinguishing the deceit in politics is to vote for the candidate who doesn’t try to deceive voters with the content of their campaign messages.

Consider that message as one of the pieces of advice in the Idiot’s Guide to Term Limits when you cast your vote this November.

This story was originally published September 18, 2018 at 3:19 PM.