Can we please get some ads that start like this:
"This message is approved by Barack Obama and verified by ABC News, the Wall Street Journal, and Factcheck.org."
We all love to see "truth squads" take apart the other side's ads, but they rarely repair the damage done by them. As we all know, the lie gets around the world before the truth gets its shoes on.
So how do we bring the truth back to campaign advertising? Let the media outlets pre-verify campaign ads.
Release an ad to one or more or all media outlets for the purpose of fact checking the claims. Let the media critics require changes to words or images before they sign off on the ad. The more media outlets sign off on an ad, the more credible the message.
If only a few ads start this way, they instantly stand out from the crowd. Those ads will be more credible, and implicitly all of the rest will be less credible. Swiftboat attacks would never get through this filter.
Moreover, imagine fact-checked and verified ads that point out the lies of the McCain campaigns unverified ads. That's a double-hit to the McCain's credibility. And attacking his credibility attacks all of his lies at once.
Frank Rich says this morning that the McCain campaign is is lying with abandon, which we all know. But how are they getting away with this? The way it's supposed to work is that the more one lies, the more one's loses credibility, so subsequent lies are less effective. For this reason, you would think that credibility is a precious commodity. If the campaign loses credibility, then pays more and more for ads that are less and less powerful.
So why isn't this the case?
People choose what to believe based on long-standing party affiliation, which is another way of saying that Republican voters will believe anything that reinforces their convictions of self-certitude.
For this reason, it is interesting that one of the McCain campaigns' lying advertisements actually falsely quotes factcheck.org. That they would use factcheck.org, even falsely, lends factcheck.org implicit credibility. Even factcheck.org got pissed about this. So why wouldn't factcheck lend their brand equity to pre-verification of a campaign advertisement? I believe they would, and it would be a instant game-changer.
I believe this is the (only?) effective way of combatting a campaign that has shamelessly spread so many lies that can no longer be individually refuted. Attack the credibility of the campaign and all of the lies past and present are mitigated.
You would think having the truth on your side is an advantage. Let's make that advantage worth something again.