"I drove trucks." "I've been a paperboy."
"I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm."
An estimated $2 billion or more will be spent
on political ads for the 2014 midterms. And
with the surge of outside money unleashed
by the Supreme Court in 2010, we can only
expect to see more of these ads going forward.
So you might wonder: Do these ads even work?
TV spot ads for political campaigns date back
to 1952.
It didn't take long for TV ads to go negative, a trend that's worsening still.
An infamous 1964 ad from Lyndon Johnson's campaign suggested his opponent would start a nuclear war.
 "These are the stakes." Johnson soon won in a landslide,
but it wasn't because of the ad. He was even
further ahead before it aired. These ads can
be so vivid and memorable that it's easy to
overstate their influence. But studies on
whether or not they matter are surprisingly
murky. Think about how small the target is:
Ads work if they persuade those few Americans
who vote but lack political allegiances and
also live in a state or a district where the
election might be a close call. So it's a
hard topic to research. The available studies
find limited effects of ads in a few cases.
But by one estimate, having a massive ad advantage
delivered only half of a percentage point
advantage in vote share in the 2008 presidential
election. Ads had an even smaller effect in
2004. In one real-world experiment during
the early months of Rick Perry's 2006 governor
reelection campaign, researchers randomly
assigned this ad to certain media markets
in Texas. "I'm proud of Texas. How bout you?"
They conducted a poll afterwards and found
stronger support for Perry in the areas that
saw the ad, but only during the week it aired.
By the following week, the effects had disappeared.
They only examined positive ads though. Might
negative ads work better? "Found in a strip
club." "Toasted the Chinese Vice President."
"Obamacare." The most comprehensive review
so far concluded that negative ads are more
memorable, but hurt the attacker as often
as they help. It's not necessarily so irrational
though that candidates spend so much money
on ads. Even if there's no guarantee that
ads can swing a race, there's only a few ways
a campaign can get its message in front of
voters. If the race is close, even half a
percentage point might make a difference.
