by Justin Paley
The micro-targeting of
voters has become a phenomenon among politicians these days. Anyone out there
who thinks there vote in meaningless, you’re wrong. Politicians are spending
hundreds of millions of dollars to get you out to the voting booth as expressed
in an article in the New Yorker by James Surowiecki. This aspect of politics has been especially prevalent in this election as the
margin of victory is expected to be very slim. Both Romney and Obama are using
data collected by their campaigns to convince certain people to vote for them
by airing television ads and other digital attacks. One example of this in
recent elections was the 2004 race between George W. Bush and John Kerry. Kerry’s campaign concluded that golfers
were more likely to vote for Bush then Kerry, so the Kerry campaign aired ads
on the Golf Channel. I think this strategy is smart but has undermined the
intellectuality of political campaigns and has taken it one step to far.
If George Washington
or Thomas Jefferson saw what the candidates were doing in this election, they
would be rolling over in their graves. The way politicians are campaigning
these days really disgusts me. Yes, I do think that using data about voters and
their tendencies is a smart idea, but the way it is being used is just one step
to far for me. This presidential campaign is expected to be the most expensive
ever, with spending expected to reach around one billion dollars. One thing
that I found interesting is an NPR article we listened to in class a few days ago about battle ground spending. NPR concluded that candidates are spending
about $1,000 per person in battle ground states. Are you kidding me? And what
bothers me the most is that all of these ads on both sides are just saying bad
things about the other candidate. This whole election has just taken it to far
between it’s spending, attacks and also the fact that candidates switch their
political views every other day to appeal to a different type of voter. This
country was founded on strong beliefs and passions. These days, political
candidates switch their views more times then we hear about big bird and
binders!
This whole digital
information age has been blown out of proportion. You would think that we’re finding
the cure of some deadly disease with the amount of money that’s put into such
tedious and specific research on voters. Political campaigns should be about
the candidate. Not attacking the other one or switching your image every other
day. I feel as though these days, politics is only about winning and not about
staying true to what you really believe in. Yes, winning is an important part
obviously, but you should not sacrifice your integrity in order to do so. And
using all these micro-targeting strategies, spending billions of dollars on
digital ads and telling the people what they want to hear even if it’s not what
you believe does just that. It’s not about whose the best candidate anymore,
it’s about who has the most money to spend and says the right thing at the
right time.
