6 ms·

If you want to run for office, how else do you tell the voters what you want to do, and why they should vote for you?

by andyv 8y ago

cle 8y ago
Is this a serious comment? How do we communicate without advertisements? This is depressing.
- softwaredoug 8y ago
  Why is political speech a different category than other forms of speech? Think of the plausible scenario of a certain Presidents FEC deciding friendly speech isn’t “political” (it’s “patriotic”!) But critical speech is clearly political and should be regulated.
  - esturk 8y ago
    Thanks. Your above says advertisement, you said speech. Thats a big difference. Advertisement can be regulated which is the focus of this thread. No one is saying to regulate some speech in a rally but is said speech is reshape as some advertisment then they should be regulated.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - k_sh 8y ago
      For the purposes of American law, "speech" is defined very broadly. It can apply to burning an American flag[0], plans for 3-D printed guns[1], and even bombmaking instructions[2]. Our Supreme Court has decided that corporations spending money[3], even in politics[4], is speech as well. The O'Brien test[5] is generally used to tell whether a law encroaches on 1A rights. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson [1]: http://joshblackman.com/blog/2018/07/10/doj-second-amendment-foundation-reach-settlement-in-defense-distributed-lawsuit/ http://joshblackman.com/blog/2018/07/10/doj-second-amendment... [2]: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/archive/abi.htm http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/archive/abi.htm [3]: https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/topics/freedom-of-speech-2/advertising-first-amendment-overview/ https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center... [4]: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/ http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v... [5]: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/obrientest.html http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/obrient...
    - bluecalm 8y ago
      You need even more money to organize rallies, get anyone to report on them and to get any airtime for yourself. Advertising is much cheaper and easier way to get people to look at your ideas. Banning political advertising is just a play to strengthen incumbents and hurt new comers. I also think it's morally wrong. It's "you should not try to influence others by yourself - only government approved channels are ok and maybe you will get a minute a day if you're already visible in the polls" kind of law. It's censorship reminding me of Soviet days. Europe is terrible when it comes to freedom of expression. Blasphemy laws are another example of prosecuting speech some groups don't like.
    - softwaredoug 8y ago
      That doesn’t change the fundamental problem. Regulating advertising for political content is a slippery slope that lets some people decide what is “political” and what is not.
  - pessimizer 8y ago
    Why is insider trading a different category than other forms of speech? Why is paying someone to murder someone a different category than other forms of speech? Why are intentionally deceptive drug advertisements a different category than other forms of speech? Why is pointing a gun at someone and telling them to do something a different category than other types of speech? I'm going to claim that it's because these forms of speech enable types of coordination and coercion that corrupt processes and structures that we deem essential for the operation of society. So, pragmatic reasons. Placing limits on the payments, direct or indirect (a dollar I spend is a dollar a candidate doesn't have to spend), that can be made to aid people in gaining a position that places them in charge of allocating public resources, that's something that very few people seriously argue against. What they argue about is what those limits should be. You can make an argument that payments to candidates and government officials should be allowed, but making absolutist arguments that something is speech and therefore must be permitted isn't serious. Payments to a television station to run an ad that you financed the production of is surely less worthy of being called speech than calling in a bomb threat is - at least the bomb threat is using your mouth to say a thing. Speech, instead, is what we define to be speech. If it's to encompass all expression, you might as well call selling cigarettes without a tax stamp speech.
    - k_sh 8y ago
      > Why is insider trading a different category than other forms of speech? The speech isn't illegal - the act of trading based on insider information is. This works in a similar manner to bomb-making plans being legal to disseminate, but making a bomb being very illegal. > Why is paying someone to murder someone a different category than other forms of speech? This is solicitation to commit a crime, which is a specific exception to the 1A. > Why are intentionally deceptive drug advertisements a different category than other forms of speech? This is a false statement of fact, which is a specific exception to the 1A. > Why is pointing a gun at someone and telling them to do something a different category than other types of speech? Pointing a gun isn't speech, it's coercion.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        > The speech isn't illegal - the act of trading based on insider information is. The act of paying for something. That's not a very helpful distinction to make when the proposal is not being able to pay for certain ads. > This is a false statement of fact, which is a specific exception to the 1A. Political ads are deceptive all the time. And what does "specific exception" mean? Specified by what?
  - cle 8y ago
    This is orthogonal to my point. I'm just surprised (disappointed?) at how some people think it's so inconceivable to communicate without advertisements.
    - bluecalm 8y ago
      It's politics. How do you convince millions of people to look at your ideas and yourself without ads? You need to be a billionaire to organize rallies in major cities and that will still be less effective than ads. You're only getting airtime if you're an incumbent or already popular. Internet made it possible to get attention of millions of people relatively cheaply. No wonder it's in the interest of ruling elite to ban doing that.
- gumby 8y ago
  I don't understand -- getting a message out is advertising by definition. Not everyone attends a rally and not every rally is (or needs to be) covered in the news. Also: in the US parties are less powerful (and not even mentioned in the constitution) so each candidate is presented individually and it's up to that candidate to bring up whichever issues (local or national) that they consider relevant. There is nothing like the party list system. So the structure of elections are quite different from the ones in, say, France or Germany.
  - Retric 8y ago
    No, getting your message out is marketing, advertising is a subset of paid marketing. Press releases that get picked up by news agency’s is a great example of the difference.
- manigandham 8y ago
  How do you communicate to millions of people then? What is your strategy? Visit every single person's home?
  - cle 8y ago
    Do you not recognize the irony of asking this question on Hacker News? And for an additional layer of irony, Hacker News doesn't advertise either (that I'm aware of).
    - enitihas 8y ago
      Actually HN does advertise. Just yesterday I saw an add in the Google search bar for "news.ycombinator.com" on Firefox focus while searching "hacker news".
    - bluecalm 8y ago
      HN regularly ban/kill political topics. Good or bad some topics don't belong here even if popular among users. Things like: "I want to be a governorn of Y region or representative of X country, here is my program" either won't get any traction or be killed. Buying ads is the cheapest and most effective way of getting eyes to your ideas. It's great it became more accessible. No wonder ruling elites in Europe want it banned tough.
    - manigandham 8y ago
      No. Irony implies expectation. Do you expect people are all going to come online, visit HN or other forums, and then discuss politics willingly with potential candidates?
  - ddingus 8y ago
    Do what that progressive in New York did to challenge the #4 Democrat in the house and win. (Osario-Cortez) She did exactly that. Campaign was as follows: Identify policy platform and benefit to winning majority of voters. Identify win numbers. Two of hers were Medicare for All and Living Wages. Organize volunteers to canvass. Break it down and insure coverage. Canvass, hold events, town hall, rallies, etc... Continue, until win numbers plausibly met. Continue. Win election, which she did. The beauty of that campaign is the strategy I put here was announced and implemented. All well ahead of the election. Was nearly a two year effort. No big money, no big media, no extensive marketing campaign. The single most important thing that team did was actually ask people for their votes. A ton of campaigns do not actually do that. They imply and or talk about how bad it can be if you do not vote. Big difference. And it takes much more of a spend to do too. This works at any scale. Sanders showed it in 2016. Same overall approach. Won 22 States and 45 percent of Delegates doing mostly that. On a national level, some AD spends are needed, but are not the core of the campaign. People to people politics work, but that is a clear vote for politicking, not the usual vote against we see most of the time. On FOR type issues, very large numbers of people will invest FOR, because they see a clear return potential. Without that, yes more ADS and such are needed, because the ask for vote part is not as prominent, often implied. My point here is we totally have ways of politicking that work and do not require massive political contributions and or ADS. I perfer them and would gladly regulate political ADS. Do the same for perscription drugs, just because doing that makes about as much sense.
ceejayoz 8y ago
Debates, press interviews and conferences, town halls, canvassing...
- softwaredoug 8y ago
  The flaw is that someone has to decide what speech is “political” or not. That person can prioritize their sides speech above competitors, by denying others a comparable platform.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  Most of the press will not even care about you if you are not in the big 3 or 4 parties. So no, does not work.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    That criticism is equally applicable to advertising - if you're not in the big 3 or 4 parties, you likely don't have any advertising budget either.
itronitron 8y ago
there is a difference between advertising and communication, and precedent has been set for bans on certain topics/products for certain types of advertising, tobacco and alcohol being the notable examples
PopsiclePete 8y ago
Institute a special tax. Election Tax. 0.001% of all corporate/personal income. No exceptions, no write-offs. Once every X years, a web-site, a tv station, and a radio station come online. The money collection from the tax is then used to give 25, not more than 2 per registered political party, enough air-time to express their views. Money is distributed evenly and the entire process is overseen by 25 randomly-chosen people of which at least 13 have no party affiliation. A federal 3-day holiday is in effect during which you, as a citizen, have no other job but to vote for a candidate after learning about their positions on various policies. The whole circus ends after 3 days and we go back to living our lives.

If you want to run for office, how else do you tell the voters what you want to do, and why they should vote for you?

by andyv 8y ago

If you want to run for office, how else do you tell the voters what you want to do, and why they should vote for you?

cle 8y ago

Is this a serious comment? How do we communicate without advertisements? This is depressing.

softwaredoug 8y ago
Why is political speech a different category than other forms of speech? Think of the plausible scenario of a certain Presidents FEC deciding friendly speech isn’t “political” (it’s “patriotic”!) But critical speech is clearly political and should be regulated.
- esturk 8y ago
  Thanks. Your above says advertisement, you said speech. Thats a big difference. Advertisement can be regulated which is the focus of this thread. No one is saying to regulate some speech in a rally but is said speech is reshape as some advertisment then they should be regulated.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - k_sh 8y ago
    For the purposes of American law, "speech" is defined very broadly. It can apply to burning an American flag[0], plans for 3-D printed guns[1], and even bombmaking instructions[2]. Our Supreme Court has decided that corporations spending money[3], even in politics[4], is speech as well. The O'Brien test[5] is generally used to tell whether a law encroaches on 1A rights. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson [1]: http://joshblackman.com/blog/2018/07/10/doj-second-amendment-foundation-reach-settlement-in-defense-distributed-lawsuit/ http://joshblackman.com/blog/2018/07/10/doj-second-amendment... [2]: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/archive/abi.htm http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/archive/abi.htm [3]: https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/topics/freedom-of-speech-2/advertising-first-amendment-overview/ https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center... [4]: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/ http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v... [5]: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/obrientest.html http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/obrient...
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    You need even more money to organize rallies, get anyone to report on them and to get any airtime for yourself. Advertising is much cheaper and easier way to get people to look at your ideas. Banning political advertising is just a play to strengthen incumbents and hurt new comers. I also think it's morally wrong. It's "you should not try to influence others by yourself - only government approved channels are ok and maybe you will get a minute a day if you're already visible in the polls" kind of law. It's censorship reminding me of Soviet days. Europe is terrible when it comes to freedom of expression. Blasphemy laws are another example of prosecuting speech some groups don't like.
  - softwaredoug 8y ago
    That doesn’t change the fundamental problem. Regulating advertising for political content is a slippery slope that lets some people decide what is “political” and what is not.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  Why is insider trading a different category than other forms of speech? Why is paying someone to murder someone a different category than other forms of speech? Why are intentionally deceptive drug advertisements a different category than other forms of speech? Why is pointing a gun at someone and telling them to do something a different category than other types of speech? I'm going to claim that it's because these forms of speech enable types of coordination and coercion that corrupt processes and structures that we deem essential for the operation of society. So, pragmatic reasons. Placing limits on the payments, direct or indirect (a dollar I spend is a dollar a candidate doesn't have to spend), that can be made to aid people in gaining a position that places them in charge of allocating public resources, that's something that very few people seriously argue against. What they argue about is what those limits should be. You can make an argument that payments to candidates and government officials should be allowed, but making absolutist arguments that something is speech and therefore must be permitted isn't serious. Payments to a television station to run an ad that you financed the production of is surely less worthy of being called speech than calling in a bomb threat is - at least the bomb threat is using your mouth to say a thing. Speech, instead, is what we define to be speech. If it's to encompass all expression, you might as well call selling cigarettes without a tax stamp speech.
  - k_sh 8y ago
    > Why is insider trading a different category than other forms of speech? The speech isn't illegal - the act of trading based on insider information is. This works in a similar manner to bomb-making plans being legal to disseminate, but making a bomb being very illegal. > Why is paying someone to murder someone a different category than other forms of speech? This is solicitation to commit a crime, which is a specific exception to the 1A. > Why are intentionally deceptive drug advertisements a different category than other forms of speech? This is a false statement of fact, which is a specific exception to the 1A. > Why is pointing a gun at someone and telling them to do something a different category than other types of speech? Pointing a gun isn't speech, it's coercion.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      > The speech isn't illegal - the act of trading based on insider information is. The act of paying for something. That's not a very helpful distinction to make when the proposal is not being able to pay for certain ads. > This is a false statement of fact, which is a specific exception to the 1A. Political ads are deceptive all the time. And what does "specific exception" mean? Specified by what?
- cle 8y ago
  This is orthogonal to my point. I'm just surprised (disappointed?) at how some people think it's so inconceivable to communicate without advertisements.
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    It's politics. How do you convince millions of people to look at your ideas and yourself without ads? You need to be a billionaire to organize rallies in major cities and that will still be less effective than ads. You're only getting airtime if you're an incumbent or already popular. Internet made it possible to get attention of millions of people relatively cheaply. No wonder it's in the interest of ruling elite to ban doing that.
gumby 8y ago
I don't understand -- getting a message out is advertising by definition. Not everyone attends a rally and not every rally is (or needs to be) covered in the news. Also: in the US parties are less powerful (and not even mentioned in the constitution) so each candidate is presented individually and it's up to that candidate to bring up whichever issues (local or national) that they consider relevant. There is nothing like the party list system. So the structure of elections are quite different from the ones in, say, France or Germany.
- Retric 8y ago
  No, getting your message out is marketing, advertising is a subset of paid marketing. Press releases that get picked up by news agency’s is a great example of the difference.
manigandham 8y ago
How do you communicate to millions of people then? What is your strategy? Visit every single person's home?
- cle 8y ago
  Do you not recognize the irony of asking this question on Hacker News? And for an additional layer of irony, Hacker News doesn't advertise either (that I'm aware of).
  - enitihas 8y ago
    Actually HN does advertise. Just yesterday I saw an add in the Google search bar for "news.ycombinator.com" on Firefox focus while searching "hacker news".
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    HN regularly ban/kill political topics. Good or bad some topics don't belong here even if popular among users. Things like: "I want to be a governorn of Y region or representative of X country, here is my program" either won't get any traction or be killed. Buying ads is the cheapest and most effective way of getting eyes to your ideas. It's great it became more accessible. No wonder ruling elites in Europe want it banned tough.
  - manigandham 8y ago
    No. Irony implies expectation. Do you expect people are all going to come online, visit HN or other forums, and then discuss politics willingly with potential candidates?
- ddingus 8y ago
  Do what that progressive in New York did to challenge the #4 Democrat in the house and win. (Osario-Cortez) She did exactly that. Campaign was as follows: Identify policy platform and benefit to winning majority of voters. Identify win numbers. Two of hers were Medicare for All and Living Wages. Organize volunteers to canvass. Break it down and insure coverage. Canvass, hold events, town hall, rallies, etc... Continue, until win numbers plausibly met. Continue. Win election, which she did. The beauty of that campaign is the strategy I put here was announced and implemented. All well ahead of the election. Was nearly a two year effort. No big money, no big media, no extensive marketing campaign. The single most important thing that team did was actually ask people for their votes. A ton of campaigns do not actually do that. They imply and or talk about how bad it can be if you do not vote. Big difference. And it takes much more of a spend to do too. This works at any scale. Sanders showed it in 2016. Same overall approach. Won 22 States and 45 percent of Delegates doing mostly that. On a national level, some AD spends are needed, but are not the core of the campaign. People to people politics work, but that is a clear vote for politicking, not the usual vote against we see most of the time. On FOR type issues, very large numbers of people will invest FOR, because they see a clear return potential. Without that, yes more ADS and such are needed, because the ask for vote part is not as prominent, often implied. My point here is we totally have ways of politicking that work and do not require massive political contributions and or ADS. I perfer them and would gladly regulate political ADS. Do the same for perscription drugs, just because doing that makes about as much sense.

ceejayoz 8y ago

Debates, press interviews and conferences, town halls, canvassing...

softwaredoug 8y ago
The flaw is that someone has to decide what speech is “political” or not. That person can prioritize their sides speech above competitors, by denying others a comparable platform.
ekianjo 8y ago
Most of the press will not even care about you if you are not in the big 3 or 4 parties. So no, does not work.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  That criticism is equally applicable to advertising - if you're not in the big 3 or 4 parties, you likely don't have any advertising budget either.

itronitron 8y ago

there is a difference between advertising and communication, and precedent has been set for bans on certain topics/products for certain types of advertising, tobacco and alcohol being the notable examples

PopsiclePete 8y ago

Institute a special tax. Election Tax. 0.001% of all corporate/personal income. No exceptions, no write-offs. Once every X years, a web-site, a tv station, and a radio station come online. The money collection from the tax is then used to give 25, not more than 2 per registered political party, enough air-time to express their views. Money is distributed evenly and the entire process is overseen by 25 randomly-chosen people of which at least 13 have no party affiliation. A federal 3-day holiday is in effect during which you, as a citizen, have no other job but to vote for a candidate after learning about their positions on various policies. The whole circus ends after 3 days and we go back to living our lives.