Study: Hillary Clinton’s TV ads were almost entirely policy-free - Polidicks

[QUOTE]Hillary Clinton’s campaign ran TV ads that had less to do with policy than any other presidential candidate in the past four presidential races, according to a new study published on Monday by the Wesleyan Media Project. Clinton’s team spent a whopping $1 billion on the election in all — about twice what Donald Trump’s campaign spent. Clinton spent $72 million on television ads in the final weeks alone. But only 25 percent of advertising supporting her campaign went after Trump on policy grounds, the researchers found. By comparison, every other presidential candidate going back to at least 2000 devoted more than 40 percent of his or her advertising to policy-based attacks. None spent nearly as much time going after an opponent’s personality as Clinton’s ads did. [IMG]https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/q_iMoC3fX_YJr2wVEtjz0kqxUuY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8113923/2016Forum_Fig9_768x538.png[/IMG] Trump, who didn’t exactly run as a wonk, aired a more typical number of policy-focused ads compared with past elections. As an example, the study notes his first big TV buy was for an ad called “Two Americas” — one that portrayed life under Clinton’s immigration policies and one under Trump’s. The Clinton world is pretty bleak. Trump’s is rosy. In all, Factcheck.org gave it a so-so review, saying the claims were based on “murky evidence and misrepresentations.” Beyond overall ad spending, the study also breaks down the content of the attack ads aired on behalf of each candidate. It says about 70 percent of Trump’s ads “contained at least some discussion of policy.” About 90 percent of Clinton’s attack ads went after Trump as an individual — compared with just 10 percent that went after his policies, the study found.[/QUOTE] [highlight](User was banned for this post ("No source in OP" - Craptasket))[/highlight]

Attack ads are not great but to be fair, Trump being a goddamn lunatic was a pretty important thing to point out.

Where's the source

I've always maintained that this is the reason why Clinton had such amazingly low turnout. "I'm not as bad as trump!!!" should have had more of an effect, but when that's literally all you say, nobody cares.

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;51937219]Attack ads are not great but to be fair, Trump being a goddamn lunatic was a pretty important thing to point out.[/QUOTE] Obviously not, because it didn't work. People knew that Trump is mental. That's a given. Clinton fucked up badly by not focusing on positive policy in her campaign.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;51937222]Where's the source[/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/8/14848636/hillary-clinton-tv-ads"]Here you go.[/URL]

This is probably why Labor lost the last federal election here, too. They focused far too much on attack ads rather than actually presenting policy - unlike the Liberals, who (although they did do some attack ads) had much more of an emphasis on policy. Eg in the days leading up to the election, Labor organised a scare campaign where they sent text messages to people purporting to be from Medicare (the government's universal healthcare service), and saying that if they voted for for the Liberals, that the Liberals would privatise Medicare. Which was a blatant lie (the Liberals were only interested in outsourcing the inefficient transaction processing systems that worked in the background). [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmU_0VWUEAA74hO.jpg[/img] It was so bad that the Australian Federal Police actually investigated the 'Mediscare' campaign.

The outcome of the campaign would be the most inspirational story in the history of modern American politics if it hadn't been the election of a childish lunatic.

She really wasted an opportunity during the debates to talk about policy. I watched them with great frustration that instead of talking about issues, she continued on, feigning protest, about Trump's personal problems that he was going through at the time with the whole locker-room talk scandal. She really should have talked about policy decisions and proposed legislation, which would have made her actually stand out!

[QUOTE=IKTM;51937339]The outcome of the campaign would be the most inspirational story in the history of modern American politics if it hadn't been the election of a childish lunatic.[/QUOTE] I'd call Obama's far more inspirational. Especially on the back of his election, hers wasn't all that impressive or inspirational, but she tried to run with that angle. He was an underdog against Clinton for the nomination, beat her, then managed to overcome the history of racial trouble in this country to win the whole damn thing, with reelection.

[QUOTE=IKTM;51937339]The outcome of the campaign would be the most inspirational story in the history of modern American politics if it hadn't been the election of a childish lunatic.[/QUOTE] 'Billionaire demagogue uses populist and xenophobic rhetoric to win in a generally right-wing country' is an inspirational story?

[QUOTE=CMB Unit 01;51937359]She really wasted an opportunity during the debates to talk about policy. I watched them with great frustration that instead of talking about issues, she continued on, feigning protest, about Trump's personal problems that he was going through at the time with the whole locker-room talk scandal. She really should have talked about policy decisions and proposed legislation, which would have made her actually stand out![/QUOTE] I found watching those debates bizarre compared to the debates we had in the Republic during our election last year. There certainly was a few jabs and attacks but it was mostly discussing policies sensibly. You actually got a sense on who stood for what. And it did lead to the [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/45z4k3/you_dropped_your_sheet/"]most dramatic moment in modern Irish political history.[/URL]

[QUOTE=BlackMageMari;51937393]And it did lead to the [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/45z4k3/you_dropped_your_sheet/"]most dramatic moment in modern Irish political history.[/URL][/QUOTE] Oh, it's a good one, but I don't think much will beat [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugailEn8U5o]this[/url].

I'm curious what percent of Trump's policy ads were negative ads against opponents vs. "what will I do". The only policies I remembered him talking about were "fuck immigrants", "Build wall"

Hillary should have done a lot more, but her hubris got the best of her. It seemed like outside the debates, she wasn't doing anything. An couple attack ads, a couple speeches, and that was generally it. She seemed to rely on everyone else pleading "Don't vote for him" to do all the heavy lifting for her.

[QUOTE=ElectronicG19;51937225]Obviously not, because it didn't work. People knew that Trump is mental. That's a given. Clinton fucked up badly by not focusing on positive policy in her campaign.[/QUOTE] She did only when she ran against Bernie. I noticed she changed her tone/message when Bernie started surging in popularity, but then once Bernie had dropped out, she immediately reverted to "Trump is terrible, vote for me!" Like SNL's version of Hillary said: "I'm whoever you want me to be, and I approve this message!"

[QUOTE=DoctorSalt;51937456]I'm curious what percent of Trump's policy ads were negative ads against opponents vs. "what will I do". The only policies I remembered him talking about were "fuck immigrants", "Build wall"[/QUOTE] Just pulling the first Google result for "Clinton Ad" and "Trump Ad" for both campaigns, the difference is already apparent IMO. [video=youtube;vST61W4bGm8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vST61W4bGm8[/video] [video=youtube;vHGPbl-werw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHGPbl-werw[/video] [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] Looking at this from a simple perspective of "negativity," I have to say Clinton's video here does come off rather sour. This is by no means an empirical study, or even a proper comparison though, and I'm rather biased in favor of Trump anyway. It's fascinating.