Today, in the United States, it is Election Day.
Where I live in upstate New York, we have no major (governor, President) races going on. Our races are local.
I was planning to vote for a candidate. Many people were - he was leading by a substantial margin, according to the polls. Until, that is, this weekend. I saw him everytime I opened Facebook. On my computer. On my phone. There, right in my face, was an ad for him. Each time.
Somehow this person had targeted me as a supporter. Except, after a couple of days of seeing his ads, I was liking him less and less. I discovered I really didn't like some of what he was supporting. No, change that. I was not liking those sponsored ads at all.
He was educating me about him, all right.
Yesterday, I opened Facebook while my son was visiting. I wanted to show him the ads.
"You know, Mom", he said, not even rolling his eyes, "you can hide those ads."
Sure enough, I could (and did).
But the damage was done. I'm voting for his opponent. I never thought the opponent was bad, just that my candidate was better. To me, it is a comfortable choice.
Have political ads ever changed your mind about how you were going to vote?
I'm participating in day three of NaBloPoMo. Come check out the posts of other bloggers committing to daily blogging in November.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
5 comments:
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I was an elected official for twenty years, but as I have supported candidates from both parties, I get emails from both parties. I really hate it. Recently I had been bombarded with emails from Melissa Gilbert who is running for US Rep. I finally had to unsubscribe. Just the fact that she sent so many emails turned me off.
ReplyDeleteToo many ads don't bother me too much, they won't get voted for if no one knows who they are. It is obnoxious though. It's the ads that are specifically aimed at tearing down their opponents instead of giving the candidate's own views that make me not vote for someone.
ReplyDeleteThe impact of Ads! Too much of them is a spoiler.
ReplyDeletePolitical ads drive me crazy, especially the negative ones. I so wish there could be limits on the money spent on such things!
ReplyDeleteI'm really good at ignoring ads. We aren't actually having an election around these parts today. It's kind of odd, but I guess there's nothing for us to vote on.
ReplyDelete