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Another election done, another reprieve from the near constant carpet bombing of the phone, mailbox, and TV with political attack ads that are misleading at best and often outright lies.

The political lobbyists seemed to really be out in force in this year’s mid-term elections so I figured I’d survey the massive pile of political BS in slick professionally produced mailers that would drive one stark staring mad if you took their “message” at face value.

From the outset, it beggars belief that anyone would believe any claim made in a political advertisement, especially those that are intended as political and/or personal attacks upon their opponent with very little actionable information. I’d imagine that the intense negativity alone is appallingly off-putting to anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the ideological extremes of the political parties.

And yet we’re constantly bombarded with negative attack ads because the political parties have proven time and again that for voters who can’t be bothered to independently research the candidate’s positions from reliable sources, the negative attack ads work.

We say we deplore the negativity and mud-slinging and yet the electorate tends to overwhelmingly support those campaigns who speak to our darkest impulses and thoughts.

I tend to live by a simple mantra…until I can conclusively prove otherwise using reliable sources and evidence, whatever comes out of a politician’s mouth or campaign just cannot be trusted and taken at face value. For those with a record in Congress, I’m going to fact check them using Congress.gov (the successor to THOMAS) and the Congressional Record. Judicial candidates, I’m going to be reading their opinions from the bench or case notes. Should none of those prove sufficient, I’m going to be researching the candidates using the Associated Press or Reuters or other media squarely in the green box of the Media Bias Chart (i.e. middle or neutral bias, fact or original fact reporting).

Here is a survey of all of the mail that assaulted my postbox this election cycle and the trends that can be inferred from them. I’m not even bothering with the massive number of junk texts or ads on video (such as TV or YouTube) which dwarfs the volume of mail.

• 33 pieces of mail in total
  • City of Raleigh
    • City Council (At-Large), 3 each from Anne Franklin and Jonathan Melton
    • City Council (District C), 1 from Corey Branch
    • Not surprised that I only got one from Corey Branch…he is an incumbent who usually wins by such a large percentage that he doesn’t really have to campaign all that hard.
    • Generally stuck to the candidate’s stand on local issues, mostly positive
  • 1 generic anti-abortion mailer supporting Ted Budd and Bo Hines, rather negative in tone toward their opponents
  • US Senate – Ted Budd v Cheri Beasley
    • 1 pro-Budd mailer from Americans For Prosperity Action which was generally an “introduce the candidate” mailing that was sort-of positive
    • 10 mailers attacking Cheri Beasley
      • 5 from Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund attacking Beasley about inflation / government spending
      • 5 from the NC GOP
        • 4 attacking Beasley with what I’d describe as “crime/fear porn” implying that she’d let all of the crims out of jail and eliminate the bail system completely, neither of which were true
      • 1 attacking Beasley on inflation /government spending
      • The attacks on inflation / government spending were more than a little unfair and misleading as she was never a legislator, all of her previous political offices were judicial
  • NC 13th District – Bo Hines v Wiley Nickel
    • NC Democratic Party
      • 1 mailer introducing the candidate’s positions on the issues, positive tone
      • 2 mailers attacking Bo Hines for his Trump/MAGA connections, January 6th
    • NC GOP
      • 1 mailer introducing the candidate’s positions on the issues, positive tone
      • 1 mailer attacking Nickel on inflation / government spending
      • 1 mailer attacking Nickel with “crime/fear porn”
    • Club for Growth Action
      • 6 mailers attacking Nickel with “crime/fear porn”
      • 2 mailers attacking Nickel on inflation/spending

Of the 33, only ten pieces of mail were considered positive or sort-of positive. That’s not a real good ratio and represents an awful lot of spending on mailed advertisements that had zero chance of swaying my opinion on the candidates or issues.

Sadly, the junk texts are relatively cheap for the campaigns to send and were very annoying which didn’t really endear the candidates that sponsored them to me.

Unfortunately, I don’t see the negativity/annoying trend reversing any time soon. These fear tactics and misleading adverts continue to be used because the vast majority of the electorate can’t be bothered to spend the time to research the candidates themselves and then vote on the least evil amongst the choices on offer.

Until we push back against the political parties and candidates using these tactics and show them conclusively that we refuse to be manipulated by fear and emotion, we will continue to be bombarded by negative attack ads with little to no truth in them because fear sells candidates. 🙁