The Olympics provides an opportunity every four years for Americans to come together united in a common goal, to crush China in the medal count. Of course, the Olympics also happen to coincide with our presidential election cycle, which means campaign ads are inevitable. There has always been an unwritten rule, however, that Olympic campaign ads have a positive, uplifting tone. In 2008, the McCain campaign was widely criticized for going negative during the Olympics, and it didn't help his campaign at all. So, you'd think lesson learned, right? But, no.
This season the Obama campaign has two ads running, "I Believe" and "The Choice."
While "The Choice" does mention Governor Romney, it's not critical. Instead, it offers a comparison between policies. For my preference, I would rather have seen "I Believe," again, but "The Choice" is not full on negative.
Governor Romney himself hasn't run any campaign ads during the Olympics, but the RNC has gone full out negative in their ad "Again."
The ad is worse that just being negative, though. It sets a depressing tone and never redeems it. The ad offers no solutions, no hope, nothing. It's just a bunch of depressing images with twisted facts. I don't know if the traditional media will pick up on this, but they should.
On a semi-related note, the U.S. Olympic Committee is also trying to put the kibosh on using Olympic footage in campaign ads.
Olympics footage is not just off-limits for attack ads. Sandusky specified the ban "pertains to all ads. We will not allow Olympic footage to be used in any political ad, positive or negative, per the IOC's Olympic Charter."
This could make it difficult for Governor Romney to run on "saving the Olympics," but it also makes it difficult for us to hit him on the $1.3 billion of taxpayer money he used to bailout the 2002 Olympics.