11 Comments
founding
Jul 22, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

This is informative and laugh-out-loud funny - thank you! I hope you never have to spend a day like that ever again.

Expand full comment
founding
Jul 22, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

The most apparent effect of TV ads is to spend lots of money. Effects on vote share are far less of a sure thing; in fact, if you read https://uprisecampaigns.org/GoingPositive/ you will see one study that shows that on average, going negative hurts the candidate running (or supposedly benefiting from) the ad. Your mileage may vary ... but the one sure thing is it will cost a candidate or PAC a lot of money. Consulting firms make a lot of $ on this stuff.

Expand full comment
Jul 22, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

Wow! That was an impressive piece of work. I never pick up the phone if I don’t recognize the caller and I never watch political ads. Who is watching this stuff? The same people who answer their land lines so they can get hit with political phone bank scripts? I am in my seventies, if this type of campaigning is not effective with me how can it be effective with younger voters?

Expand full comment
Jul 22, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

Glad you were the ones doing this! I make calls for Mark Kelly’s group Mission for Arizona on Sunday afternoons and talk mostly to young Dem and Ind voters who are less discriminant about answering calls from WA state. (Still have old phone #) it’s actually fun to talk with them. Many have no idea who he or Gabby are, which is sad. Big issues: ABORTION and gun violence. And they ARE voting.

Expand full comment
Jul 22, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

Thank you for taking that one for the team. I, too, just watch PBS or stream. I was musing the other day, while answering the phone at the PCDP office, about all those questions about ads and who people should vote for. Now I understand their anguish. However, I can now tell people to go to CleanElections.Gov to do their research. You two earned your hazard pay for this story.

Expand full comment
Jul 22, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

Sorry for inflicting old fashioned television on you milleniels. Next time out source this kind of project to us Baby-Boomers who do it all day every day. However, I generally only watch programs I have recorded so I can fast forward all the ads. I have not learned the new skill of streaming. Is that a verb or an adjective???

Expand full comment
Jul 22, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

In Prescott for the week. The radio station up here is full of endless political ads. They are brutal. I think you would be entertained. Try listening to KKLD for a couple of hours.

Expand full comment
Jul 22, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

This is a great, funny article. The only one I had not seen is the Kentucky Derby ad. I liked its strange quality. The only people liking these ads must be the stations who are apparently rolling in money. A neighbor moved away and I have been clearing there mailbox of junk mail. My god, they get a lot of candidate ads! Day after day after day the same candidates fill their box with ads. They have left the state, so I assume they will no longer be voting in Arizona. Unless this is the way elections are stolen! Course, they seem to be Republican, so there is that.

Expand full comment
Jul 23, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

This is why I tape the news, I mean record, so I can fast forward through the bullshit. You are warriors for spending the day watching that junk. They are all horrible ads. Waste of time!

Expand full comment
Jul 23, 2022Liked by Rachel Leingang, Hank Stephenson

Wow!! Talk about earning your political journalist medals for the day. Go ahead and take the weekend off to regroup from such a tough assignment.

Expand full comment