Did Citizen's United Make A Difference?

grunion

Penultimate Amazing
grunion
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I live in a solid blue state, so very little national campaign advertising made its way onto our local broadcasts. And I watch very little TV. And what little TV I do watch is generally through a DVR that lets me speed through the ads. So although I am a political junkie, I managed to pretty entirely avoid political television advertising this time around.

But I hear stories about the tremendous ad buys in Ohio and Minnesota that had people ready to throw their television sets out the window. We were justifiably upset, I feel, about the misguided Citizen's United decision that gave our corporations the unlimited right to spend money to influence elections, as a free speech issue. But at this point I'm wondering how much influence they really had.

One of our local House races brought in a lot of PAC money on the Republican side, spent slinging all kinds of mud against the one-term Democratic incumbent. Mostly something about how he helped a neighbor's kid get a job. "Used his influence." My son, a typical 10-year-old TV junkie, remarked when he saw a lawn sign for the Democrat - "Dad, isn't he the most corrupt person in Congress? Why would anyone vote for him (and what's "corrupt" mean?)" In a district that went just over 50% for Romney, the Republican, generally an admirable man as far as I can see, lost 48-52.

It's pretty obvious to me that advertising works, when it comes to brand recognition and associating a particular personality or lifestyle with a product or service. But I wonder if the oversaturation of political ads, especially on television, and especially in the "battleground states" (a phrase which I am quite glad to not have to hear again for awhile), really has rendered them powerless.

I dunno. Perhaps on local candidates, issues and referenda a huge influx of Kochaine did indeed shape the story in many cases, so I'm not sure what I think on this one. I still think Citizen's United is dead wrong, and Anti-American, but I'm hoping the billionaires will start to see PACs as a waste of cash. If common sense doesn't kill it off maybe the free market will. Wishful thinking.
 
At the very least, they certainly saw the law of diminishing returns at work. (I think here, a lot of the ads and robo calls only pissed people off.)

I disagree that the Citizens United decision was anti-American. The right to free speech (which includes the freedom of association--that is pooling resources in groups of people for the purpose of engaging in speech acts) is part of the Bill of Rights, one of our most essential core values.

It's not an unlimited right, though, and if it is outweighed by a legitimate public interest (usually safety), then it can be restricted. I don't think that applies in this case.

Also, any formulation for limiting the speech rights of association has an extremely large baby-with-the-bathwater problem.

I am extremely reluctant to amend the Constitution to repeal even in part the First Amendment, which is what it would take to reverse this ruling.

I am strongly in favor of the Disclose Act, since there is no First Amendment guarantee of anonymity in engaging in speech acts.

ETA: But obviously, the notion that the electorate is so fickle that elections can always be "bought" by the biggest spender has been disproven, again.
 
Well of course it added billions to the campaign coffers. I'm not an idiot. But I'm wondering how many votes it really influenced. I think it had more of a chilling effect than anything (but that is perhaps the intent in some cases.)
 
grunion said:
Well of course it added billions to the campaign coffers
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No, it did not add an extra cent to campaign coffers. Citizens United had nothing at all to do with campaign contributions.
 
BenBurch said:
Yes, it made a huge difference. About a billion extra dollars between both sides, most on the GOP side.
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But. . . they lost.

Money didn't determine the outcome.

I think Grunion is right that we've reached a saturation point such that the ads just aren't so very effective. At least, as I said, they ran up against the law of diminishing returns.
 
WildCat said:
No, it did not add an extra cent to campaign coffers. Citizens United had nothing at all to do with campaign contributions.
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If anything, it created competition for candidate campaign fundraising.

It also certainly resulted in much less control by the candidate campaign over the message. OTOH, it let the candidate campaigns keep their hands clean, leaving more of the attack ads up to the other organizations.
 
Advertising can make you aware of a candidate. But it doesn't buy a vote.

Just like all the advertising in the world didn't make the Zune, Kin, or Edsel sell.
 
They had a big effect, but that's not the same as a "difference". They forced the Democrats to go into extreme money-raising mode too, which they succeeded in doing. Had the Dems been unsuccessful in raising lots of money, the GOP would have done much much better. I don't care at all for this development because it is so extremely wasteful. Take those hundreds of millions of dollars and plug them into productive investments and you could do a lot of good for the country.

Then again, perhaps the drop in the stock market is due to all that money that is no longer going into the TV networks. ;)
 
Federal PAC money against California via Arizona
http://www.wafb.com/story/20008570/donation-by-az-nonprofit-called-money-laundering
The commission took the group to court for failing to divulge the source of its funds, and eventually appealed the case to the state Supreme Court, where state officials argued that it was critically important information that voters needed before they cast their ballots.

In a rare Sunday decision, the California Supreme Court unanimously ordered Americans for Responsible Leadership to disclose who was behind the donation. The group threatened to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court but backed down Monday morning and disclosed it received the $11 million from a group called Americans for Job Security through an intermediary, the Center to Protect Patient Rights. Both are federally registered nonprofits that are not legally required to disclose donors.

Americans for Job Security has been active in the presidential race, pouring millions of dollars into swing states for independent expenditure ads supporting GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates, and the Center to Protect Patient Rights distributed more than $44 million to more than two dozen conservative advocacy groups during the 2010 midterm elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

It reported that the group's president, Sean Noble, is a political operative for the billionaire brothers Charles and David H. Koch, who have given millions to conservative causes. Noble did not immediately return messages by email and phone to his Phoenix-area number from The Associated Press on Monday...
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meet the new boss...
 
WildCat said:
Advertising can make you aware of a candidate. But it doesn't buy a vote.

Just like all the advertising in the world didn't make the Zune, Kin, or Edsel sell.
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Adverts can also convince people to believe lies.
 
WildCat said:
Advertising can make you aware of a candidate. But it doesn't buy a vote.
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Ridiculous. If advertising didn't entice people to "buy" a product or a candidate, then there would be no advertisement. Yes, some products are so bad that no advertisement will make it sell enough, but you can sell any kind of crap if you advertise it enough.

Ms. Tricky and I like to go to garage sales on weekends. Every time we go, we see the same over-hyped gadgets for sale. George Forman grills and "lean mean fat-grilling machines" are ubiquitous. Ginsu knives. Thigh Masters. If you think advertising didn't sell these products because they repeated the same BS endlessly, then you are a lot more naive than I suspected. Works with politics too.
 
Tricky said:
Ridiculous. If advertising didn't entice people to "buy" a product or a candidate, then there would be no advertisement. Yes, some products are so bad that no advertisement will make it sell enough, but you can sell any kind of crap if you advertise it enough.
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So how did you resist the urge to vote for Romney?

Tricky said:
Ms. Tricky and I like to go to garage sales on weekends. Every time we go, we see the same over-hyped gadgets for sale. George Forman grills and "lean mean fat-grilling machines" are ubiquitous. Ginsu knives. Thigh Masters. If you think advertising didn't sell these products because they repeated the same BS endlessly, then you are a lot more naive than I suspected. Works with politics too.
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Advertising made people aware of those products, and people said "I'd like to have that product". The advertising just makes them aware of the product, and if they like it they buy it.

And I bet like every other person who complains about the advertising, it's the ignorant unwashed masses you worry about being affected by the advertising, not a smart guy like yourself, right? Or do you think you'd vote for a Michelle Bachman-type if you saw X number of ads for her?
 
Advertising is the attempt to influence people to do certain things. It's not just to make people aware. Sure, it doesn't work on most people, but around 3% of the general population are.I suspect even higher percentages of republicans are.

Do you think windows is superior to macintosh?
 
thaiboxerken said:
Advertising is the attempt to influence people to do certain things. It's not just to make people aware. Sure, it doesn't work on most people, but around 3% of the general population are.
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Cite? And these 3%, they're influenced by pure numbers of ads? So if one of the 3% sees 27 ads by Candidate X and 34 ads b Candidate Y he'll vote for Y?

thaiboxerken said:
I suspect even higher percentages of republicans are.
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And you think these Republicans would vote for Obama if they didn't see so many ads?

thaiboxerken said:
Do you think windows is superior to macintosh?
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For my purposes it certainly is.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
But. . . they lost.

Money didn't determine the outcome.

I think Grunion is right that we've reached a saturation point such that the ads just aren't so very effective. At least, as I said, they ran up against the law of diminishing returns.
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There's actually published research on this very point (sorry, can't remember where). Conclusion: the saturation point is real, and once you hit that mark all the ads in the world won't make a bit of difference. In fact, they can even piss people off and flip them the opposite way.

So yeah, law of diminishing returns writ large. Karl Rove must be soooo sour right now, the poor melon-head.
 
WildCat said:
And you think these Republicans would vote for Obama if they didn't see so many ads?
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What if it's just the last ad people see, strategic ad placement and timing could get a candidate 100% of the vote :eek:
 
WildCat said:
So how did you resist the urge to vote for Romney?
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No matter how much you advertise, you're not going to sell a Ford to a Chevy lover.

WildCat said:
Advertising made people aware of those products, and people said "I'd like to have that product". The advertising just makes them aware of the product, and if they like it they buy it.
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Not according to all the marketing information I've ever heard, which admittedly is mostly from talking to marketing majors in college.

WildCat said:
And I bet like every other person who complains about the advertising, it's the ignorant unwashed masses you worry about being affected by the advertising, not a smart guy like yourself, right? Or do you think you'd vote for a Michelle Bachman-type if you saw X number of ads for her?
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I admit I am affected by advertising. Don't you? No, I guess you don't, because you're a smart guy who is still arguing that it just makes you aware rather than convincing you of anything.

But the efficacy of advertising saturation is well proven. If it didn't work, they wouldn't throw away so much money on it. I can't believe you're even arguing such a ridiculous position. You think Madison Avenue is just an information clearinghouse?
 
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