Discussion for article #224879
Perhaps proving the old adage: any publicity is good publicity.
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I’d like to see a p-value on those lines. Looks like no relationship to me and the Republican line is being driven by an outlier. The wonderful world of social science regressions.
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No such thing as bad publicity.
“In states where it’s a Republican defending their Senate seat, negative ads did seem to lead to a reduction in enrollment”
I have to question the validity just based on that one statement. There are only two states where republicans are actively defending their seats…Kentucky and Georgia. And everything I hear and read from Kentucky indicates that they had huge success in enrollment.
Secondly, we are just now entering the general election cycle. (Georgia is still waiting to hold the run off from the republican primary, for example). So the big anti Obamacare expenditure wasn’t supposed to really kick in till August-Oct.
Personally, I don’t think Obamacare is going to be the central topic of many campaigns, certainly not any of the Senate campaigns.
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…and as Oscar Wilde said, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”
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It certainly has been a belief in the advertising industry – for a very long time – that negative advertising mentioning the competition by name promotes awareness (of the competition) and is ineffective. That’s why you see it done so very rarely. The approach you see most often in consumer product ads is the over-the-top, humorous assertion of what befalls you with “the other guys.” One of my favorites of the genre is an airline ad (from the 60s/70s?) that depicted the air travel experience – on no name other airlines – as akin to late 19th early 20th century steerage; dazed and confused huddled masses clutching their farm animals. (Former copywriter, of course.)
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Sounds like people who watched the ads were mostly tuned out and heard “blah blah blah healthcare blah blah subsidies blah blah” and raised their awareness. Heck of a job, Koch bros!
Spot on. Here in Wisconsin we had a Governor recall election in 2012. The DPW (Dem Party of Wisc - a top-down bundle of dull knives), in an act of incredible stupidity put up billboards of Scott Walker all over the place. Now, the print part of the billboard ad listed the nasty things he had been doing, and there was plenty from which to choose. But damnation, 12 foot high pictures of him…and some verbiage no one but the choir bothered to read.
George Lakoff, in an interview, used DPW’s billboards as a perfect example of what not to do. D-Oh!
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Now we just have to hope the conservative courts do not strip the subsidize out of federal exchanges. That would be the worst thing to happen.
It would make Cato and the Tea Party happy but would be pretty horrible for everyone else.
Prior to collecting the data, the researchers suspected that the negative ads “might have” had a positive effect on enrollment.
Thanks to all the careful research, they now know that the negative ads “might have” had a positive effect on enrollment.
Science!
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Correlation does not equal causation.
The “horrible for everyone else” is a political force to be tapped, especially since the “everyone else” includes all the insurance companies and healthcare providers along with the people who can thank Obamacare for their coverage or quality of coverage.
Obamacare is a complicated collection of policies that only functions well if most of the pieces are in place.
Cato and the Tea Party thinks they are trying to ruin a game of Jenga. They believe that, if they remove enough pieces, the little tower of Jenga blocks will tumble down, the liberals will cry, and Cato and the Tea Party can join everybody else in a good laugh at the crybabies.
Over time, however, Obamacare has grown into a large stack of clay bricks. Cato and the Tea Party are standing at the bottom of the stack, trying to knock some of the pieces out.
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Lots more study needed.
But – these results are certainly plausible. Given the low-level of political participation and legal-policy awareness in America, it’s conceivable that tens of millions of people would never ever have heard about the law were it not for the ads. Then, having heard distortions, these people might have talked to someone who knew a bit, and eventually found out that he (Eureka!) could actually get insurance coverage.
Back in the early 60s, Vitalis had advertisements for its hair product where one guy would look at another and say, “are you still using that greasy kid stuff?”. Of course, this wasn’t naming a competitor’s product, but a couple of college students saw the potential and got together to create “Kid Stuff Products, Inc.,” and started manufacturing “Greasy Kid Stuff”. The product went viral and they sold out their first production run in days. It didn’t last long, but they made big bucks by taking advantage of the millions of dollars in free advertising provided by Vitalis
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More and more it seems to me that the destruction of campaign finance laws by the SCOTUS is hurting Republicans and Republican causes more than Democrats or Democratic priorities. Most of the primary challengers who’ve ousted or come close to ousting a Republican incumbent have been funded by outside groups. No one would’ve ever heard of Chris McDaniel were it not for all the money he got from various TP groups. Were it not for the decimation of campaign finance laws, the GOP would have a far more electable crop of candidates, and they’d probably control the Senate.
Thus confirming the old Hollywood adage: “I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right.”
It’s still hurting us a lot even if it is worse for the Republicans. It’s a no winner or a no want to win.
No matter which party benefits or gets hurt the most, the Kochs of the world are the real winners.
That sure brings back memories, the Vitalis that is. Vitalis, Brylcreem (a little dab will do ya… the girls will all pursue ya) and Wild Root hair styling products. I used them all to keep that pompadour high and proud. Yikes!
What I still can’t believe is the lack of PRO- ACA ads, including information on signing up. They really dropped the ball on that and I will never understand why.
Parenthetically, a friend of mine who is stopping work in September and so is signing up for the ACA has been getting wrong information from the telephone “navigators.” Three different people told her that her sons could not be included because even though they are not yet 26, they pay taxes on their own and so are excluded. I looked it up, and you can cover your children even if they are married. In fact there simply are no exclusions for children under 26. They can go under your plan even if their employer offers them coverage. I finally referred her to an insurance broker who told her that some of the navigators are not very bright, and some really don’t want to see the program succeed.
I would like to report these people, but I don’t know who to contact and my friend didn’t get their names.
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