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No lies, no taking a snippet of phrase out of context, no twisting the meaning of anything. Responding to whole arguments and ideas in the full context and intent that they are provided. Where people would go to sites like FactCheck.org and having them say Yeah, that's really how it is. How hard would that be? Is it even possible? Could it possibly work?

It could possibly work because it is so outside the norm. Of course this is the same reason it might not work.

Our current national level debates are not structured in a way to encourage this either. I would rather see a clean back and forth conversation/debate from the candidates, rather than 30 seconds question and answer session.

Rather of course in your ads talking about the opponent, I would rather a politician talk more about themselves, issues, and their ideas. This is another issue though related.

You don't have to do any of that for your supporters to do it of their own volition and your opponent to denounce it.

Negative campaigns will stop when they stop working and the voter doesn't fall for them.

On the other hand, there's usually something in every candidates past that is at least embarassing and knowing all the facts about the candidates is a good thing.

Political ads are super annoying either way really and should be an iinconsequential percentage of the information you base your vote on.

Remember that part of day to day politics involves compromising and negotiating with other legislators on bills. And another part is raising bills purely (or primarily) in the political interest of making your opponent vote against them. So you can then use their having voted against the "We all love America and God Act" when you're composing ads to run against them the next time they run for re-election.

All those "candidate x voted to raise taxes 18 times" factoids are based on pulling data points out of context, and making factually true (or not much distorted) statements which still slant the facts in your favor.

 AduroT wrote:
No lies, no taking a snippet of phrase out of context, no twisting the meaning of anything. Responding to whole arguments and ideas in the full context and intent that they are provided. Where people would go to sites like FactCheck.org and having them say Yeah, that's really how it is. How hard would that be? Is it even possible? Could it possibly work?

It is exactly as hard as making every eligible voter understand how to read and critique the results of an OLS analysis.

It's not that it's hard, per se, to run an honest campaign. It's more accurate to say that it's inappropriate to run an honest campaign in our current day and age because that's not really what the people want. You have to remember that the public, by and large, wants to be lied to, and we reward those who do so. We want to be told that we can run up spending, and pay for all of our social programs while also still paying for more aircraft carriers then the rest of the world combined and do so without raising taxes. We want to be told that can solve our fiscal problems by implementing major cuts in the budget, but without cutting any of the super-expensive elements that people actually care about. We want to be told that our candidate is unconcerned with social issues and is simply a fiscal conservative, and after he's voted in and immediate sponsors anti-abortion laws right and left, well, we vote that sucker in again. We want a candidate who claims that they will run a campaign that doesn't include negative ads, and then we overwhelmingly respond to negative ads. We want a primary system where our candidates say the most outrageous nonsense to play to their bases; knowing full well they will have to disavow every bit of that crazy talk to appeal to the middle just 2 months later.

Our system works the way it does because this is what we want as a majority; evinced by the fact that it hasn't changed. If anything it's gotten more stupid over the last 10 years imo. Just the way we like it.

I think the biggest problem is that properly stating a point and presenting it fully is boring. People will hear about 30 seconds of it and then turn off, because it's just all a load of words.

This is why the biggest problem, in my opinion, isn't dishonesty, but superficiality.

If you want to have any chance of seeing an honest campaign at the national level, you need to do two things besides get people to stop being gullible and lazy:

1) Campaign finance reform. There's no incentive to be honest when an honest candidate will inevitably be buried by a well-funded dishonest opponent. It doesn't matter how good your message is when you're out-spent 100-1, and the people with lots of money to throw around want someone dishonest who will gladly take their bribes. However, if you take the big money out of elections there might actually be a chance for voters to hear the competing messages instead of an endless flood of negative ads.

2) Remove the winner-take-all system. Currently there's no way to succeed with an honest campaign because the two major parties are both dishonest, and anyone outside the two major parties has effectively zero chance of winning an important election. Some of this is due to simple inertia and having the time and money to build up an effective election machine, but a major factor is the winner-take-all system that makes voting for a third party a waste of a vote. If you instead allow a sensible system where you can vote for multiple candidates people will be able to vote for their preferred candidate AND the major party candidate closest to their views as a backup plan, so there might actually be room for an honest party to appear.

 sebster wrote:
I think the biggest problem is that properly stating a point and presenting it fully is boring. People will hear about 30 seconds of it and then turn off, because it's just all a load of words.

This is why the biggest problem, in my opinion, isn't dishonesty, but superficiality.

I definitely agree with this. I mean, look at the ACA-- a great deal of Americans support having the government do what the Affordable Care Act already does... but far fewer support the ACA.

Part of that is Democrat incompetence in not explaining it well enough early on and letting Republicans lie about it. But the other part is, well... it's a big bill and it does a lot of things.

Negative Ads aren't there to make you want to vote for someone, they are there to reinforcce the idea that the system is broken and you should not bother going to the polls at all.

This eliminates moderates, third party types, and low-information voters. Then, it just becomes a matter of who can mobilize thier base the best. A small electorate of hard core voters is easier to predict and poll for.

We could have an honest campaign if the two parties weren't so similar. When the differences are as minor as they are you have to create cleavages to campaign against.

That being said, Romney has been ridiculously and aggressively dishonest this entire campaign. Obama hasn't been 100% factual, but saying there is a problem with both campaigns is really misunderstanding reality.

Pretty sure outside of America, politics is fairly clean. In the UK the parties are all full of right-wing bollocks, but at least they don't attack each other like those personal and vindictive adverts you see state-side.

 Easy E wrote:
Negative Ads aren't there to make you want to vote for someone, they are there to reinforcce the idea that the system is broken and you should not bother going to the polls at all.

This eliminates moderates, third party types, and low-information voters. Then, it just becomes a matter of who can mobilize thier base the best. A small electorate of hard core voters is easier to predict and poll for.

Looking at historical precedent, it also tends to be how democracies work. Its really, really rare for high voter turnout to follow from "Eh, things aren't too bad."

Why would one wish to run an honest campaign? Surely the idea is to win?

 Albatross wrote:
Why would one wish to run an honest campaign? Surely the idea is to win?

Well, I guess it's an honest campaign if you're being honest about the atrocities committed by your adversary, right?

 dogma wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
No lies, no taking a snippet of phrase out of context, no twisting the meaning of anything. Responding to whole arguments and ideas in the full context and intent that they are provided. Where people would go to sites like FactCheck.org and having them say Yeah, that's really how it is. How hard would that be? Is it even possible? Could it possibly work?

It is exactly as hard as making every eligible voter understand how to read and critique the results of an OLS analysis.

Object Source Lighting?

 Testify wrote:
Pretty sure outside of America, politics is fairly clean.

Most assuredly not. Every place has its nasty politics.

Ordinary least squares.

 dogma wrote:
Ordinary least squares.

If you hover your mouse over OSL it says otherwise.

TheHammer wrote:
That being said, Romney has been ridiculously and aggressively dishonest this entire campaign. Obama hasn't been 100% factual, but saying there is a problem with both campaigns is really misunderstanding reality.

I agree with this. You don't expect a lot of honesty from a politician, but the Romney \Ryan camp has shown a willingness to lie that is a little shocking, really, and with a regularity not on a level seen by other major politicians of either party in my recent memory. From the big stuff (Obama robbed medicare) to the little stuff (Ryan lying about his running time), these guys just reflexively go for a falsehood even when it's something laughably untrue, or debunked in seconds (like the current "only Obama wanted the sequester" meme they're pushing now). It's just kind of weird at this point, really.

 Ouze wrote:
...to the little stuff (Ryan lying about his running time)...

This pissed me off the most. I've run a couple marathons, and while I don't remember my exact times* (Somewhere north of 4:10 if anyone cares.) I've never claimed that I ran 1.5-2 hours faster. But, when I was actually pushing my speed in the 40 I remembered to the tenth what I could run. And, when I said something unusual, it wasn't gentle ribbing from friends it was "You're a fething liar." until I proved myself.



*I've never been a truly competitive distance runner, it was something I took up when I realized that being a big, burly NG meant less sex.

 dogma wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
...to the little stuff (Ryan lying about his running time)...

This pissed me off the most. I've run a couple marathons, and while I don't remember my exact times* (Somewhere north of 4:10 if anyone cares.) I've never claimed that I ran 1.5-2 hours faster. But, when I was actually pushing my speed in the 40 I remembered to the tenth what I could run. And, when I said something unusual, it wasn't gentle ribbing from friends it was "You're a fething liar." until I proved myself.



*I've never been a truly competitive distance runner, it was something I took up when I realized that being a big, burly NG meant less sex.

Night Goblin?

Night Goblins need love to, but they gotta pay.

Big Burly National Guardsman? That really doesn't right at all....

 Peregrine wrote:
2) Remove the winner-take-all system. Currently there's no way to succeed with an honest campaign because the two major parties are both dishonest, and anyone outside the two major parties has effectively zero chance of winning an important election.

Yeah, because proportionate representation has kept Italian politics so clean.


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 Melissia wrote:
I definitely agree with this. I mean, look at the ACA-- a great deal of Americans support having the government do what the Affordable Care Act already does... but far fewer support the ACA.

Part of that is Democrat incompetence in not explaining it well enough early on and letting Republicans lie about it. But the other part is, well... it's a big bill and it does a lot of things.

Absolutely. The third part is people just generally opposing change, especially when there is any kind of possible downside for them. But mostly it's the ignorance and incompetence of the Democrats in explaining ACA.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Testify wrote:
Pretty sure outside of America, politics is fairly clean.

Ah, no. Go read about Russian politics some time. Or pretty much anywhere in South East Asia. I mean, in terms of the region Malaysia is pretty clean, but it didn't Anwar Ibrahim being falsely charged with sodomy to remove him from the political race.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
I agree with this. You don't expect a lot of honesty from a politician, but the Romney \Ryan camp has shown a willingness to lie that is a little shocking, really, and with a regularity not on a level seen by other major politicians of either party in my recent memory. From the big stuff (Obama robbed medicare) to the little stuff (Ryan lying about his running time), these guys just reflexively go for a falsehood even when it's something laughably untrue, or debunked in seconds (like the current "only Obama wanted the sequester" meme they're pushing now). It's just kind of weird at this point, really.

This is a major part of the reason I've kept saying Romney is really bad at campaigning. Telling such a long stream of blatant lies, and continuing to repeat them after they've been demonstrated as being lies just doesn't work. People are stupid, but not that many are that stupid.

He could achieve much the same effect with better wording and better framing of the issues, but instead he just unloads this stream of lies.

And the only people who seem to believe the lies these days are the same ones who would have already voted for him anyway.

 sebster wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
2) Remove the winner-take-all system. Currently there's no way to succeed with an honest campaign because the two major parties are both dishonest, and anyone outside the two major parties has effectively zero chance of winning an important election.

Yeah, because proportionate representation has kept Italian politics so clean.

Meanwhile, in Northern Europe, it seems to be working just fine.