A Strange Case of Alan Grayson and "Taliban Dan Webster"

In September 2010, a Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson hit hard his opponent Dan Webster in a negative ad focusing on Webster`s approach to women rights (Condon). From a technical point of view, the ad was effectively done – a real nasty piece of art. In short, it used Webster`s recent speech; specifically, it took some of his parts out of context and repeated them like a mantra until it was clear enough that Webster was a misogynic religious fanatic rejecting women’s rights. Specifically, a female narrator says in the ad: "Religious fanatics try to take away our freedom, in Afghanistan, in Iran and right here in Central Florida". Finally, to make sure the effect was stable, on the end f the ad Webster was called "Taliban Dan Webster (Condon)." (Obviously, it would be hard to look for any factual information for voters in this ad.)

One might say it is ridiculous; who could ever take such a message for granted? The true is, even ridiculous pieces have their time, place, and effect. According to Berger, once released, they cause a sufficient damage to be considered efficient and that damage cannot be undone even if the ad was proven untruthful million times (96). In Jackson’s words: “First, prosecutors can’t move quickly enough to cure the damage caused by a last-minute, false attack”. Simply, nobody can erase the idea from voters` minds once they saw the ad (Jackson).

Moreover, this case is also a great example to show that legal restriction to truthful information in political advertising would not be always useful. In this situation, even though the ad was clearly out of line, it would be very difficult to try to prove it wrong since it did not present any specific untruthful facts. After all, the message talks Grayson`s personal opinions and cites what Webster really did say. The fact that it was taken out of context and that the whole message about Webster being a fanatic is not accurate does not matter since there is no explicit lie about what Webster did or said. After all Grayson could always say the thought it was true (Jackson).

To conclude, this attack ad is an example of negative advertising sending a misleading message to voters and yet not offending any rules. Nevertheless, it has no informational value and therefore it is totally useless for voters. In my opinion, strategies such as this ad are way out of adequate tools of politicians; to be honest, I think politicians could do much better than this pathetic attempt to attack. However, I must admit that this is a great example of negative advertising that will hardly ever be worked out even if the world accepts restrictions of political speech.

           

 Reference: 

Berger, Arthur Asa. “Political advertising”. Seeing is Believing: An Introduction to Visual    Communication. Rowman and Littlefield, 2011, ed.4.

<http://www.aef.com/pdf/BERGER~Ch6.pdf>

Condon, Stephanie. “Alan Grayson Labels Opponent "Taliban Dan Webster". CBC News. September 27, 2010.

            <http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20017692-503544.html>

Jackson, Brooks. “False Ads: There Oughta Be A Law! – Or Maybe Not”. FactCheck.org. June 3,           2004. May 10, 2007.

            <http://www.factcheck.org/2004/06/false-ads-there-oughta-be-a-law-or-maybe-not/>