The Political Ad Season Is Coming---I Am Already Tired
We are getting closer. Election Day is still a few months away, but the signs of the impending doom are beginning to appear. Political advertising season is coming.
Soon, our television screens and radio airwaves will be taken over by political commercials.
Millions and millions of dollars will be spent trying to convince us how to vote. In some races, the spending is already extraordinary. Michigan’s 2026 Senate primary alone generated more than $98 million in advertising spending and reservations.
And I dislike almost everything about it. My frustration has little to do with one political party or another. Both sides participate. Candidates participate. Political action committees participate. Outside organizations participate. Everyone apparently has concluded that the best way to earn my vote is to explain how absolutely terrible the other person is….
Candidate A is dangerous. Candidate B cannot be trusted. Candidate A is destroying America. Candidate B wants to destroy America.
And, of course, there is always the ominous music, the unflattering black and white photograph and the narrator who sounds as though civilization itself may end sometime shortly after Tuesday.
I get it. Negative political advertising exists because campaigns believe it works. Research on its effectiveness is more complicated, with studies finding relatively small persuasive effects from political advertising overall and mixed evidence about the effectiveness of negative campaigning.
But effectiveness is not really my point. My question is much simpler:
What are you going to do?
Tell me how you are going to make my community better.
Tell me how you are going to improve education, strengthen healthcare, address our national debt, improve infrastructure or make government function more effectively.
Tell me what problem you want to solve.
Tell me how you plan to solve it.
Give me a reason to vote for you instead of spending 30 seconds giving me reasons to vote against someone else. That would actually be refreshing.
I understand politics is competitive. Elections require candidates to distinguish themselves from their opponents. There are legitimate differences in philosophy, policy and priorities that voters should understand. But I would like to finish watching a political commercial feeling informed instead of irritated.
Maybe even inspired. Imagine that.
Instead, for the next several months, we are going to hear repeatedly about corruption, incompetence, extremism, disastrous voting records and various threats to our way of life.
Which brings me to football season.
I have complained plenty about the commercials during football games. Beer. Gambling. Male personal enhancement products. More gambling. More beer. I don't drink beer. I don't gamble. And I am going to leave the third category alone. But this fall, I may develop a newfound appreciation for all of them.
Because after watching my 14th political commercial explaining why someone I have never met is apparently the worst human being in America, a beer commercial with two Clydesdales walking through the snow is going to feel downright inspirational.
And game action cannot come soon enough.
