Post Election Dysfunction

1053 – Yes!

For – $1,284,953

Against – $1,530,977

1082 – No!

For – $3,394,034

Against – $5,778,325

1098 – No!

For – $6,099,873

Against – $5,113,900

1107 – Yes!

For –$15,038,170

Against – $341,384

After looking at the Public Disclosure Commission website (http://www.pdc.wa.gov/MvcViewReports/Committee/initiative_committees) and adding up the total money officially spent on a few of the Washington State initiatives, a few things really stuck out.

1)      The money was relatively even for most of the initiatives except for one of the liquor initiatives (1105) and more interestingly 1107 (candy and soda tax).

2)      In the case of 1107, the money that came in for the repeal was 5 times greater than the money against the repeal.

3)      Almost all of the initiatives were blowouts, except for 1100 concerning liquor stores.

4)      The side who spent the most money didn’t always win. The side that marketed themselves better won.

While there is no way to quantitatively measure which ads were better, anecdotally I can think of a handful of ads that seemed to be more effective at a) firmly entrenching if an initiative was good or bad; and b) didn’t just seem like a standard, cookie-cutter attack ad.

In the not-effective column – Every Rossi ad. I never heard once why I should vote for him. Lots of reasons to not vote for Murray; but nothing about how Rossi would do anything differently. I learned he put himself through college as a janitor. That’s it.

Most of the liquor ads, both for and against. Selling us the idea that we should be able to buy liquor at the grocery store came off to me as hedonistic while I never heard a good reason to not allow liquor at 7-11 other than kids might be able to get it easier. As long as there are older brothers and sisters, that won’t matter.

In the effective column – Some of the Murray ads. Especially toward the end of the election season, she started touting her accomplishments in office. Reminding people that she had been a pretty effective senator was nice and made it easier for her supporters to actively support her.

Most of the pro 1107 ads. Some of them may have stretched the truth, but in all the campaign gave easy to digest reasons that appealed to logic. Even if you are for the taxing of candy and bottled water, it was hard to argue against this initiative.

Although I know this is a completely unscientific poll of one, it’s a good reminder that dollars spent does not equal a winning campaign (See Meg Whitman). Although I would like to think that these measures and politicians succeeded or failed on their merits, in many ways it seemed as though the group that more effectively marketed their brand won out in the end.

In this election cycle, the conservatives began setting the talking point agenda early, leading to a mid-term that had progressives on the defensive from the beginning. What’s truly remarkable though, is how Washington generally resisted this national trend. Brian Baird’s district turned to a republican, but the rest of the state held steady (if Larsen’s  lead holds) while voters kept alive two government institutions that are privately run in many states (liquor stores and workers compensation insurance).

What does this all mean? What I would like to hope is that voters are getting more sophisticated and require more than a cheap attack ad to change their votes. But what I really think is that more and more people are bypassing traditional media and getting their information from outside sources, many of which are held to no standards of truth or factualness.

Radio talk show hosts, under the guise of political commentary, have essentially turned into shills for the two political parties. Commentators on both sides of the political spectrum provide shady half-truths and lies of omission to their listeners, many of whom are too busy to follow up with research of their own. Add to this the ability to find an expert or media outlet that will agree with just about any viewpoint, and voters are left in one of three predicaments.

1) Vote along party lines that generally match their beliefs.

2) Not Vote

3) Lose faith in the media and the ability to rightfully give credence to what is correct or even plausible, resulting in a massively misinformed voting public.

Unfortunately, the 3rd option is gaining stream (Obama is a Muslin, Kenyan, Cactus) and here in Washington we are thrilled with 66% turnout.Maybe if we could market voting as American, and not as partisan things will change. Until then, it seems as though branding and marketing will continue to dominate.

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