Still, even those of us who are longtime Republicans or Democrats like to think we go through some kind of decision-making process before we vote. The answer isn't pretty, at least on first reading. We increasingly get our information about presidential candidates from paid political advertising and less often from arm's-length political campaign coverage. But while the results of these studies make for nifty sound bites trumpeting the usurpation of political discourse by those with the deep pockets needed for political ads, the full story is far less simple and certainly less dire. Let's begin with a simple fact.
Political advertising is up.
This means the power of money is up, because advertising is expensive. That's the amount of money television stations are expected to take in this election cycle in return for running paid political ads. It's also a number the television industry's powerful lobbying arm, the National Association of Broadcasters, is feverishly trying to protect. Meanwhile, most network news operations, where studies consistently show most Americans get their news, are covering politics less and less, meaning they are covering it worse and worse. Reformers had suggested that TV stations cover politics for at least five minutes a night for the 30 days leading up to an election.