From: acm@Sun.COM (Andrew MacRae)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Subject: Re: Banning Political Ads
Date: 7 Apr 92 00:57:10 GMT
Reply-To: acm@Sun.COM (Andrew MacRae)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: grendal.corp.sun.com

In article <9204061613.AA28442@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
 > The pot legalization folks have had very little success in getting
 > their message out through the news.  Most of the current (albeit
 > meager) coverage comes out of their efforts to place an ad.  Abolishing
 > ads cuts them out quite effectively....

Flat out wrong.

The pot legalization have had even less success in getting their
message out through paid ads.  So far they have had
zero success with paid ads while they have received numerous news
mentions.  I think I win that point.
 

 > >I trust the news organizations far more than I trust the sales managers.
 > 
 > I don't trust the news organizations enough to give them complete
 > power.

Neither do I, that is why I have never proposed doing so.  So why
bother to mention it?


> MacRae has argued that we should ban paid TV coverage because it has
> certain properties.  Now we find that the properties don't matter,
> that he doesn't want to restrict other political speech with the same
> properties.

The 'properties' you mention are the fact that broadcast ads suck up
over 80% of the money required to campaign.  I know of no other medium
with that property, do you?


 > As I've written every time I've posted the arithmetic; it merely
 > proves that significant personal contact is impossible in nationwide
 > elections (as well as many local or state elections) for reasons that
 > have nothing to do with the existence of TV.  (See the very next thing
 > that MacRae quoted.)

Yet you have still to explain how other countries (GB for example) and
our own country managed to have elections without paid broadcast
advertising.  You can't go on showing that it is impossible to hold
such elections without explaining their existence.  Or do you deny that
England is having an election this week?



 > I also haven't proved that political parties or newspapers are either.
 > (Considering that they aren't....)  Instead, I've responded to
 > MacRae's actual arguments about the properties of TV and the changes
 > that one can expect from restricting it.

The changes would be (as I have said before) ...

	1.) Cheaper campaigns
	2.) More substance in the candidates speechs (because the
	    need for sound bites would be gone.)
	    
If it is true that you now agree that tv and radio ads are not
required for elections, what is wrong with trying out this
proposal?  What is the worse that could happen?


 > > > Not at all.  I'm pointing out that LaRouche used LESS total time to
 > > > deliver more substance.  He detailed programs.  He discussed funding
 > > > and tax system changes and reorganization, creation, and destruction
 > > > of govt agencies.  All on paid TV.
 > >
 > >Was any of it carried in any newspapers or as part of any broadcast
 > >news?  IF not, why not?
 > 
 > And what would that prove?  (Remember the pot legalizers....)

It would suggest to me that his ideas were not worth reporting.  Are
you suggesting otherwise?

In remembering the pot legalizers, I remember that their story was told
via television news, while their ads were rejected by the very stations
that carried the news story!  Thank you for reminding me.


						Andrew MacRae
						
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