Did Citizen's United Make A Difference?

[IchabodPlain]

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.

Has someone been reading Freakonomics?

 

[WildCat]

Maybe advertising doesn't work?

The biggest single donor in political history, the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, mingled with other Romney backers at a postelection breakfast, fresh off a large gamble gone bad. Of the eight candidates he supported with tens of millions of dollars in contributions to “super PACs,” none were victorious on Tuesday.

Sounds like Adelson got duped by some of Tricky's college buds.

 

[Tricky]

Maybe advertising doesn't work?


Sounds like Adelson got duped by some of Tricky's college buds.

As I mentioned earlier, the reason it didn't work is because the Obama campaign pretty much matched their spending level and, in my opinion, positioned their ads more wisely.

Remember the GOP primary in Florida? Newt was on a roll and looked likely to win, but Romney flooded the state with negative ads and won handily. Newt himself admitted that he lost because he was outspent.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Has someone been reading Freakonomics?

Ah yes, that's it. Thanks!

NPR did a story on that Freakonomics research awhile back. That's how I heard about it.

 

[IchabodPlain]

Ah yes, that's it. Thanks!

NPR did a story on that Freakonomics research awhile back. That's how I heard about it.

Cool It's a fun read, even if you're not an econ or non-fiction guy/gal; recommended reading!

RE Tricky on Gingrich's comment after Florida: What did you expect him to say? That the reason voters didn't support him was because of his lackluster policies, insider-sleaziness, or lack of energy in building support within the party in the state? Nah, much easier to blame it on Uncle Pennybags, especially when you're trying to hit up your own pet billionaire fundraisers for a couple million more.

 

[Dymanic]

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.

I'm afraid so. Wishful thinking, that is.

Billionaires are in this for the long haul. As long as all of that money is permitted to exert its full weight on our electoral system, it's only a matter of time before they have their way completely. It was a near enough thing as it was this time, and that's with them stuck trying to sell an absurdly bad product AND with the economy in good enough shape (all the political ad hype notwithstanding) to permit large numbers of people on the opposing side to afford to make modest contributions. Throttle the economy back a bit (or a lot), and those small contributors will start feeling the pain long before those billionaires will, so instead of a big pile of big money up against a big pile of small money, you'll have a big pile of big money up against a smaller pile of small money . Now put that pile of big money behind a candidate who isn't so glaringly shallow and two-faced, and it's game over.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

I know I was swayed by the flood of negative ads, I refused to vote for Barker because most of what I saw with Exum's name on them were attack ads. I think Exum may have won, so I'm not alone.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Interesting (but long) article on Obama running an evidence based campaign:

The Analyst Institute’s centrality in the left’s research culture has enshrined the use of randomized field experiments as the best tool for measuring what actually moves voters. And the biggest conceptual contribution this body of experimental work has made is to cleanly separate what a voter does in election season into two discrete phases: choosing among candidates and deciding whether to vote. Experiments have shown that giving voters more information about candidates or issues or the stakes of the election does little to adjust their likelihood of casting a ballot. To budge a nonvoter out of complacency, campaigns have learned, they have to use psychological techniques focused on getting someone to do something he or she is not used to doing. There’s one set of tools for changing opinions, and another for modifying behavior.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...assive_advantage_in_targeting_and.single.html

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Now that the counts are pretty much all in, it looks like the evidence now says that the big spending didn't have anything like a proportionate effect on elections.

Karl Rove got about a 1% return on the ~$230 million his two SuperPACs spent. Other big spenders proved more or less as ineffective:

The American Crossroads debacle was only the most dramatic example of the limits of big money in this election, according to the Sunlight Foundation report. About $1.3 billion was spent by outside groups overall -- about two-thirds on the Republican side -- and for the most part their returns were equally low. The Chamber of Commerce, for example, spent $31 million-and had a 5 percent return, according to the Sunlight study. The conservative American Future Fund spent $23.9 million and also realized a 5 percent return. The National Rifle Association spent $11 million, and got shut out.

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_new...uper-pacs-spending-was-nearly-for-naught?lite

 

[Ziggurat]

Not according to all the marketing information I've ever heard, which admittedly is mostly from talking to marketing majors in college.

... and of course, no one in marketing would ever have any reason to overstate the efficacy of marketing.

I admit I am affected by advertising.

I'm affected by all kinds of speech. Advertising isn't fundamentally any different. Do you feel that you need to be protected from advertising? Do you also feel the need to be protected from political pundits who espouse different ideologies than you do? Do your political opponents need to be protected from your political speech? Shall we institute limits on the number of political posts you came make in this forum, in accordance with that logic?

You're not talking about speech simply affecting people, you're claiming that speech is harming people. If so, there's no reason to stop the restrictions at advertisements.

 

[dc1971]

Do you feel that you need to be protected from advertising?

That is one of the main reasons I don't subscribe to cable anymore. I feel I have control over what I'm exposed to, unlike most Americans who will just sit by watching their cable TV and complain about too many commercials. I actually did something about it, I got rid of my cable so you could say YES I feel I protected myself from advertising. Your question of "needing to be protected" hints at maybe people here feel they need some "outside help". To which it's called NO, they don't.

Do you also feel the need to be protected from political pundits who espouse different ideologies than you do?

Sure. Absolutely. If I have a differing of opinion, what am I going to do? I'm going to explain what my differences are. However, once again, you're hinting at some outside source (govt maybe?) should be the protector and I don't think anyone here feels that way. Yet people who hint at this type of rhetoric or even blatantly ask if they "feel that someone else should get involved" are those who love to spin conversations such as this into something that's to their advantage.

Do your political opponents need to be protected from your political speech?

Now, upon reading your questions Zig, I think you're doing more than just hinting at, I think it's quite possible you're turning this discourse into something that it's not. No one is suggesting "protection from" or "opposition to" anything in the way you're suggesting. However, it's obvious you want an answer so my answer is just what I said above. I can protect myself. If I feel I disagree, I will state why I disagree. If I don't want to watch commercials, I'll change the channel or turn the TV off or I will cancel my cable subscription.

Shall we institute limits on the number of political posts you came make in this forum, in accordance with that logic?

Please refer answers above.

You're not talking about speech simply affecting people, you're claiming that speech is harming people.

No one is saying that.

 

[dc1971]

bump

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

On a bit of a tangent:

I think exposure to absurd marketing is a good way of making skeptical thinkers. I've seen fairly young kids who recognize that when an add says "free" it doesn't usually mean anything is actually free.

The old Columbia or RCA records deals were a sort of rite of passage.

10 records for 11 cents if I then buy only two more at the "regular" price? What a deal? And then you do the math and find that you paid roughly the price you'd pay for records in the retail stores if and only if you cancelled your membership at the earliest possible time. If you let it go even one month too long, you not only bought a lot more records than you'd have bought at a store, but you paid higher prices for them.

Or better yet, did anyone ever believe the novelty company "x-ray specs" were as advertised?

By the time we're grown ups, we should all have pretty strong marketing filters in place.

Seriously, who thinks they could have won a foreign lottery that they never entered just because they get an e-mail saying so? If you're that gullible, you deserve to learn a hard lesson.

 

[dc1971]

On a bit of a tangent:

I think exposure to absurd marketing is a good way of making skeptical thinkers. I've seen fairly young kids who recognize that when an add says "free" it doesn't usually mean anything is actually free.

The old Columbia or RCA records deals were a sort of rite of passage.

10 records for 11 cents if I then buy only two more at the "regular" price? What a deal? And then you do the math and find that you paid roughly the price you'd pay for records in the retail stores if and only if you cancelled your membership at the earliest possible time. If you let it go even one month too long, you not only bought a lot more records than you'd have bought at a store, but you paid higher prices for them.

Or better yet, did anyone ever believe the novelty company "x-ray specs" were as advertised?

By the time we're grown ups, we should all have pretty strong marketing filters in place.

Seriously, who thinks they could have won a foreign lottery that they never entered just because they get an e-mail saying so? If you're that gullible, you deserve to learn a hard lesson.

How about R-O-L-A-I-D-S?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Now, upon reading your questions Zig, I think you're doing more than just hinting at, I think it's quite possible you're turning this discourse into something that it's not. No one is suggesting "protection from" or "opposition to" anything in the way you're suggesting.

Actually the Movement to Amend is definitely calling for a constitutional amendment essentially to protect us from political speech. (It would restrict rights that funder current jurisprudence are recognized as an integral part of First Amendment free speech rights: notably, the freedom of association.)

And I think Zig's questions point to the fundamental problem I have with the Movement to Amend. It ties in somewhat with the point I've been arguing about the way social issues end up being resolved over time--they always end up being settled in favor of progressives; conservatives always lose. (By the time issues are settled and no longer part of the mainstream debate, that is.) The only exception I can think of has been Prohibition, but I contend that the reason is that it was actually an anti-liberal movement made for liberal reasons.

The more or less philosophical underpinning of liberalism (as opposed to conservatism) is the view of human nature as basically good and trustworthy. So restricting the rights of individuals is contrary to this view. However, drinking in the U.S. right before Prohibition really was a tremendous problem that was squashing the integrity of individuals. (A lot of this was then couched in religious terms: drowning the divine spark in each person, or whatever. It's essentially a humanist notion though. Somehow wasting a human life--the same idea that led to abolitionism, women's suffrage, etc.)

The problem is, you can't protect the individual by restricting his rights and still remain true to that basic view of human nature.

Again, I think the Movement to Amend is a well-intentioned but misguided approach to the problem, just as Prohibition was.

Further, I think we see from the information provided here, the "problem" has been exaggerated, I think, in part to justify the movement to restrict rights. [ETA: Or through honest ignorance. But we shouldn't condone ignorance in this forum, since it requires a degree of willfulness not to be educated here.]

 

[Ziggurat]

Now, upon reading your questions Zig, I think you're doing more than just hinting at, I think it's quite possible you're turning this discourse into something that it's not. No one is suggesting "protection from" or "opposition to" anything in the way you're suggesting.

I think that's exactly what people arguing against Citizens United are doing when they advocate government censorship of political speech. They think certain kinds of political speech do harm, and that the government must prevent that harm.

I can protect myself. If I feel I disagree, I will state why I disagree. If I don't want to watch commercials, I'll change the channel or turn the TV off or I will cancel my cable subscription.

I agree with you completely about this. Which is why I see no need or justification for government to step in and do that for you. Others here, however, do not agree with you.

 

[dc1971]

I think that's exactly what people arguing against Citizens United are doing when they advocate government censorship of political speech. They think certain kinds of political speech do harm, and that the government must prevent that harm.

Well certain political speech does do harm. Someone calling Obama a "socialist" is wrong and it's harming because those who aren't well versed in politics will believe it and pass it on to their friends or colleagues. Although saying the word "socialist" in itself is not harmful, the spreading rumors and lies is.

I agree with you completely about this. Which is why I see no need or justification for government to step in and do that for you. Others here, however, do not agree with you.

YOU? Agree with me??? BOIOIOIOIIIIING

Well, I don't agree with your last bit there. I don't see that. Where?

 

[Ziggurat]

Well certain political speech does do harm. Someone calling Obama a "socialist" is wrong and it's harming because those who aren't well versed in politics will believe it and pass it on to their friends or colleagues.

But do these people need protection from this harm? If so, then you're taking the position that you said nobody was taking. If not, then there's no reason to oppose Citizens United: the remedy is not censorship but counter-speech.

YOU? Agree with me??? BOIOIOIOIIIIING

I have long been a defender of free speech. If you find yourself also defending free speech, then chances are you will find yourself in agreement with me. I have frequently found myself in this position with Joe - we disagree on a lot but not this.

Does it make you feel dirty when I agree with you about something? Maybe I should randomly say I agree with you just to make you uncomfortable.

 

[dc1971]

But do these people need protection from this harm? If so, then you're taking the position that you said nobody was taking. If not, then there's no reason to oppose Citizens United: the remedy is not censorship but counter-speech.



I have long been a defender of free speech. If you find yourself also defending free speech, then chances are you will find yourself in agreement with me. I have frequently found myself in this position with Joe - we disagree on a lot but not this.

Does it make you feel dirty when I agree with you about something? Maybe I should randomly say I agree with you just to make you uncomfortable.

 

[Dymanic]

By the time we're grown ups, we should all have pretty strong marketing filters in place.

On Nov. 22, 2011, Mitt Romney’s campaign released an ad which featured Obama saying, "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose".

Turns out that was snipped from a longer quote which, in its entirety, was:

"Sen. McCain's campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose.’"


What kind of "filters" is the average grown-up supposed to have in place that would provide protection against such blatant dishonesty? Do you really equate the potential damage to our society from that kind of advertising with the potential damage from advertising that basically pranks gullible adolescents into squandering a couple of bucks on x-ray specs? Does the "If you're that gullible you deserve to learn a hard lesson" rule apply even if the hard lesson is that you -- along with a great many similarly gullible people -- have just made one of the most important decisions you will ever be called upon to make as a citizen based on "information" that was completely false? And what about the non-gullible citizens who will also pay the price of that hard lesson if they turn out to be fewer in number than the gullible ones? Do they also deserve it even if the only reason is that they weren't able to pool together enough money to fund advertising that would expose the falsehoods?