Advertising, the much-maligned, often-overbearing nuisance of American television, has for years been a key tool of campaign strategies throughout the country. Political ads attack, dish and, on occasion, offend. But as the 2006 campaign season hits the home stretch, leading researchers at the university say the majority of this year’s ads for Maryland candidates have been, well, tame.
“Every election cycle the Chicken Littles come out. They all start whining about how negative [the advertising] is,” said Trevor Parry-Giles, co-director of the university’s Political Advertising Resource Center, whose offices are located in the Skinner building. “It’s not dramatically more or less than I’ve seen in the past.”
With only six days left before the election, Parry-Giles and his co-director and wife, Shawn, have been fielding calls from media outlets almost daily about their assessment of this year’s lineup of campaign ads. As the newly appointed local experts on the subject, the Parry-Giles have been the go-to source for their critical research on Maryland’s gubernatorial and senate races, and both say this year’s campaign advertisements offer little out of the ordinary.
With all eyes on some of the state’s most contentious local and national races, PARC has emerged as one of the few groups in the country and the only group in the state to take an in-depth look at the construction and arguments of state campaign advertisements during the midterm elections, and their analyses have proven particularly valuable for those seeking to make sense of this year’s campaign rhetoric.
They got a taste of how important their work could be during the 2004 presidential race – a few months after the center’s research began.
“People tend to think that who they’re voting for and the fact that they’re voting at all is relatively unrelated to the actual ad that they saw,” Shawn Parry-Giles said. “But the research actually indicates that the ads have a pretty substantial impact on people.”
Through a three-pronged research strategy – which includes focus groups of undergraduate students and surveys taken from more than 1,000 people nationwide – PARC’s team of four professors have gone to great lengths to analyze the content and effectiveness of campaign ads put out by candidates Rep. Ben Cardin, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, Gov. Robert Ehrlich and Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley. Working with no funding, the group has relied on the work of graduate students and extra-credit incentives to get participants for their research.
The research will not be compiled until after Tuesday’s elections, but preliminary results have shown highly polarized feelings from partisan students who watch the advertisements, many evoking negative emotions when seeing an ad from the opposite party. With the results, PARC also hopes to see the influence an advertisement’s structure has on a voter’s decision on election day.
But Trevor Parry-Giles does not need the results to size up this year’s campaigns.
“Maryland is a funny state; it’s one of the more educated electorates in the country,” he said. “They vote for something they view as legitimate. The advertising in Maryland has been pretty above-board.”
Of the two types of negative advertising Parry-Giles describes – bashing someone’s character or attacking an opponent’s record – he said the strongest character attacks in the state have been ads run by gubernatorial candidates Ehrlich (R) and O’Malley (D) questioning the other’s record and credibility. He says he has seen little of the mud-slinging that has taken place in Virginia and Tennessee.
“This campaign has kind of hummed along. It hasn’t seemed to catch fire,” said Trevor Parry-Giles of the gubernatorial ads.
Aiding the undramatic campaigns may be the techniques the candidates use in their ads.
“Both Steele, as well as O’Malley, develop negative ads shaded as funny – they cloak it in humor,” Shawn Parry-Giles said. “For voters that are on the fence, that may work. Our focus group participants didn’t really note that.”
Trevor Parry-Giles speculated that the governor’s race may be boring because of stagnant polls that show O’Malley with a comfortable lead, but also thinks it might be overshadowed by the more competitive battle between senatorial candidates Steele (R) and Cardin (D).
Highlights of the Senate campaign ads include a recent back-and-forth spat between the two on their views of stem cell research. Cardin released an ad with Michael J. Fox accusing Steele of not supporting the controversial issue, and Steele shot back with a testimonial from his sister in his support.
“What I think has become very clear is that there’s a dialogue that takes place between the ads. The ads talk to one another,” Shawn Parry-Giles said. “The debate is taking place oftentimes through the ads themselves.”
Of all the ads they’ve seen this season, both Parry-Giles agree that Steele’s campaign has been head and shoulders above the others because of his polished, mildly innovative ads.
“Knocking on the screen, sitting on his name, all that is kind of creative. They work in a way to reinforce the persona he’s trying to create. They’re different,” Trevor Parry-Giles said. “I suspect that he’s hired well. He’s had lots of money, as all good Republicans do. That’s given him the capacity to explore.”
On the other end of the spectrum, says Trevor Parry-Giles, is Cardin, who’s says the longtime congressman has done little to shake his stodgy image.
“His ads are kind of boring,” Trevor Parry-Giles said. But considering that Steele and Cardin are fighting to replace the un-flashy Sen. Paul Sarbanes, he says “Cardin’s done the right thing to be nerdy and credible.”
So, will Steele’s cleverness help him steal a victory, or will Cardin’s standard approach prevail?
“There’s nothing new under the sun – politicians who reinvent the wheel lose,” Trevor Parry-Giles said.
Contact reporter Owen Praskievicz at praskieviczdbk@gmail.com.
