Political Ad Nauseam

For the first time in my life, I'm living in a media market inundated by presidential ad campaigns. I suppose that Virginia proved to be a bellwether late in the 2008 race, but I don't recall all that many ads at the time. Or perhaps I wasn't watching as much TV. The real kicker is that I don't even live in any swing territory; neither Maryland or DC are up for grabs. Obama and Romney are fighting over the handful of counties on the other side of the Potomac that just happen to share airwaves with the rest of the DC Metro area.

Initially, I refused to keep track of the ads that popped up during the Ravens-Eagles game on CBS yesterday (couldn't even flee to Fox since there was only the one game on at 1:00). But before long I realized that I was subconsciously keeping score ("keeping score" being one of those sicknesses that poisons modern political thinking and why people like me shouldn't be allowed to comment on politics). Here a Romney ad, there an Obama ad.  They seemed to be coming one for one. As the ads continued, and the game itself became more and more absurd, and I began to succumb to a migraine that I will assume is unrelated to the nonsense on my screen, I left the room altogether to take a nap. I've since happily forgotten how many ads I endured during the first half and the fourth quarter. But I can--and will, despite myself--try again next week. And the week after. And every week until the election, through Week 9: over half the regular season drowned in political ad nauseam.

I think I understand some of what the undecideds and un-interesteds have been griping about all these years. If you don't care about the election, there's a decent chance that your only exposure to the candidates and the issues are through these ads. And if you only know the election through the ads, you have every right to hate everything about politics. One guy says the other is lying; the other hurls back the same charge, with slightly different sinister music. One guy makes a claim that you know can't be verified but sounds good; the other makes a very similar-sounding and equally vague claim. Without context, politicians really can start to blend together in the mind's eye, giving rise to the very false common wisdom that "they're all alike." Even the positive ads grate, unrelenting and legion as they are--and because they remind us that we haven't yet seen the last of this campaign. It's enough to make a sane and decent person swear off the institution altogether.

And if I were slightly more cynical, I'd theorize that this is exactly the game plan--shake off the interest of everyone except the die-hards, who are so much more reliable and easier to control. Eventually, those are the only people you're talking to until political discourse on the airwaves is indistinguishable from the Internet.