Davis Merritt: Political ads an ugly avatar of a beautiful idea

Politics is the way our democracy is expressed and experienced, the inefficient, often ugly avatar of a beautiful idea.

It doesn’t have to be inefficient and ugly. People choose to make it that way because some handsomely benefit from doing so. And they benefit because the rest of us validate their work through our votes or decisions not to vote; the ugliest, most expensive campaign almost always wins.

Kansans, when they cannot avert their eyes and close their minds in time, are experiencing the destructive work of advertising assassins headed down the homestretch in a midterm election that has critical implications not only for Kansas but also the nation.

In the increasing heat of the contests, the traditional exaggerated claims of candidates’ accomplishments and distortions of opponents’ records are giving way to flat lies and character assassination at a level not seen in the memory of most Kansans.

Not since 1974 has our state politics been so sullied. That was the year the now suddenly sainted Bob Dole narrowly won re-election to the U.S. Senate aided by a last-minute accusation that opponent Bill Roy was an abortionist. The weekend before the election, pro-life workers flooded the Kansas City area with 50,000 leaflets picturing dead fetuses and denunciations of Roy. Dole won by only 13,532 votes out of 794,434, or 1.7 percent.

That last-minute ploy, coming when Roy had an edge in the polls, was shocking to many then. Now it seems routine, almost quaint.

Except two things have not changed. For one, it worked. And, second, Dole, whose national political ambitions likely would have ended with a loss, denied that he had anything to do with the leaflets. Likewise, this year’s candidates maintain a pristine distance from the most inflammatory attacks by support organizations with all-American, self-righteous names, anonymous financial supporters and well-hidden agendas.

They are the ones who pay the advertising assassins to manufacture the poison that is slowly draining away our political vitality and rotting our civic faith.

As someone involved with words and ideas since my grammar-school days, I often wonder about those paid political assassins. Who are they? Do they spend most of their time figuring out how to sell cereal or a new toy, but in political season morph, werewolf-like, into killers? Do they feel as satisfied and whole when they create a campaign of lies and distortions to destroy a candidate (or a family or an idea) as they do when they raise funds for United Way or promote a children’s concert?

Are they so unimaginative that they cannot figure out how to sell a strong candidate’s positives or shore up a weak candidate’s shortcomings?

Or is their amorality so ingrained that one client is just as good as another so long as the rent and electric bills are paid?

No other institution in our lives cannibalizes itself the way the political industry does. If, for instance, United Airlines has an accident, the other airlines do not rush a campaign onto the air saying, “Go ahead. Fly the dangerous skies of United.” They know they all have a shared interest in a healthy and trusted industry so people will keep flying.

Politicians and special interest organizations haven’t yet figured that out. Maybe it’s up to us to show them how.

This story was originally published October 27, 2014 at 7:02 PM with the headline "Davis Merritt: Political ads an ugly avatar of a beautiful idea."