If Elected, I Pledge to (Insert Issue Here)

Demetrios Pogkas and David Ingold, writing at Bloomberg, break down what percentage of campaign ads have dealt with different issues in different parts of the country.

So it seems these totals can hint at what things are on the minds of the voters in those areas. Thus, immigration issues rising to the top in some areas of California, Arizona and Texas makes sense because voters who live in those areas are faced with that problem a little more acutely than are voters in Des Moines.

According to the map, many of the ads run in my own fair state concern education issues, most likely educational funding. This past spring's teacher walkout put the matter squarely before us (or at least reminded us it should be squarely before us), so people running for office have made their positions on the matter an important feature of their cases as they are put before the electorate. Voters in Hawaii and some areas of Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and Maryland are also seeing a lot of ads on these issues.

The top concern of ads in by far the largest geographical area of the country is health care. But, as Pogkas and Ingold point out, all that means is that health care matters were the subject of the most ads. Whatever was on point in the second largest number of ads may still have take up a lot of airtime. So while health care issues may have headlined the most commercials in Florida, the "All those damn kids and their loud music" ads were probably in a comfortable second place, with "Mandatory deportation to Georgia for stepping on my lawn" in third.

As I read the story and the number breakdowns, a couple of thoughts occurred to me. As mentioned above, ostensibly these ads represent the concerns of the voters and thus the candidates responding by informing the electorate of their position on those concerns. Campaigns probably relied on poll data gathered from likely voters to determine their ad content. But I'm wondering why California 20th District Representative Jimmy Panetta has been airing so many ads about guns, He whupped his challenger, independent candidate Ronald Paul Kabat, 103,000 - 20,000 in a June 5 primary. Is gun ownership an issue so on the minds of the CA-20 voters that it could erode his 65-point lead? Or is Panetta someone who wants to trumpet his position on gun issues and doesn't really need to worry about what impact it will have on election day?

Also, I am not at all sure about the standards the Bloomberg staff used to determine what a particular ad was really about. Because based on my own non-scientific survey, most political ads were about what a rat bastard the other candidate was. Sure, he may have been a rat bastard who was going to tax the $5 Grandma gave you for your birthday so that Elizabeth Warren could use it to light her stove pilot. Or she was a rat bastard who was going to make kindergartners work in the oil fields in order to earn the money to have Crayons (New color: Light Sweet Crude).

But long before that we learned that the candidate himself or herself was the veriest incarnation of Steve (or Stephanie) Rogers imaginable, right down to the star on the shield, while the opponent was the kind of person who believed in depilating kittens with road tar -- at least until something crueler came along.

What Pogkas and Ingold's story can teach us, though, is that while political ads are useless as sources of information they are essential to candidates getting our votes. That reality does not make us as an electorate look good, by the way. Let's say a random New Mexico candidate realizes health care is a big concern for the voters he or she wishes to sway. The common-sense solution is that the candidate publishes a position paper on the issue and voters who want to know where the candidate stands on it read the paper. Then they decide how they might like to vote.

Unfortunately, since our far more common practice is to not pay attention to anything more than three paragraphs long (meaning that getting here makes you quite uncommon, O Tolerant Reader) and to forget even that between now and election day, out come the commercials and ads. But neither medium lends itself to detailed explanations or positions. So the only way to maximize their impact is to contrast the election as a choice between me -- a person who stood up and saluted the National Anthem when I was in the womb -- and my opponent, who lines his catbox with shredded rags of Old Glory itself.

But there is yet hope. The article says that the blank areas of the map, found in Alaska, are ones where ads were not measured. In my eternal sunshiny optimism, though, I shall prefer to believe they are the Blessed Lands where no political ads, measured or otherwise, are ever aired.