During the 2008 Elections in Texas the opponents of Barack Obama's campaign committee charged them with putting out false and misleading political advertising on the Hispanic venue radio and TV stations. Obviously, those who are not Hispanic or perhaps do not speak much Spanish do not listen to or watch those states. Some of the hurtful things which were said about John McCain were, well, and this is my opinion, "deeply troubling" and unfortunate to say the least.
Interestingly enough, I met a gentleman who worked for an advertising agency in Houston who assisted the Obama Campaign in the primary vote there. He bragged about how they dialed in the Hispanic vote in the primary, and later during the election. Personally, since I am not a supporter of Obama, I felt it was somewhat problematic that he helped out the campaign in what "I believe to be" an unethical way. Nevertheless, those negative ads did wonders for Obama in TX, and in AZ and NM too.
In the last month, October of 2012, President Obama went to California to the home of Caesar Chavez and called his home a National Monument, unfortunately, he did that on Columbus Day, a day all Americans might celebrate as it was the day Columbus was said to have discovered America, even if he really found some islands nearby. Some might charge the President with political pandering, but it was nice for him to show that he is also with the Hispanic Community, even if there is irony in the date he chose.
Now then, whether or not the President on that particular day was catering heavily to the Hispanic vote or even pandering as his opponents had said, I'd still like to see a reality check this time around on any of the negative ads the Obama Campaign runs on Hispanic media venues. In other words, just as we have everyone running around playing "gotcha politics" and pretend-to-be fact-checkers, maybe we need some Spanish speaking media folks doing a little fact-checking of their own?
Luckily, first and second generation Hispanic Americans are well aware how much bull politicians will throw out and generally they don't trust them much, still, if a barrage of ads are released just prior to the election, very negative ads, there won't be time to set the record straight, and by then all the fact-checking in the world might be, well, too late.
Thus, we need a full-on scrutinizing of those advertisements to make sure they keep it legit and reality based. What I've seen so far isn't, and realize that's only been in the English speaking political ads, is really crossing the border on ethical truth in advertising. Please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Political Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/
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