To the Editor:
Many political ads of current circulation go far beyond the exaggerations of their predecessors. Formerly, generally speaking, most assaults upon a candidate’s character were built from a negative interpretation of a factual event.
For instance, an office-seeker might have been branded soft on crime by an opponent, if it was revealed, he, 30 years earlier, supported parole, not jail, for a 90-year-old found guilty of stealing lollipops.
Today, a harsher assessment might be leveled, perhaps an accusation of controlling interest in a “geezergang” or harboring hatred of law enforcement.
A segment of those who devise negative ads favor including in them a photograph of their target, original or doctored, if it implies the candidate is ugly, wicked, dippy, or bewildered.
The content of certain ads is so composed of imagination, that they seem more appropriate for comic books than political literature.
High on the list of these is a glossy flyer, having, in the upper right corner, a smiling picture of China’s president, his hands applauding as he appears to look approvingly at Amy Kennedy seated at the lower left.
In truth, his appreciation is not being directed at her, but at companies that left the U.S. before her birth, government officials who signed China favoring trade agreements when she was too young to vote, and federal administrations, every one of them who, despite frown and gripe, perpetuated those agreements, during years she devoted herself to advancing education.
