Attack of the Early Attack Ads

Ben Nelson doesn’t face reelection to the U.S. Senate until November 2012. Yet attacks on the Democrat began in January 2011 with a radio spot asking, “Can Nebraskans trust Ben Nelson?” Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill first saw billboards calling her a reckless spender this summer, even though Republicans won’t choose her opponent until next August. Same for Bill Nelson. The Florida senator was under siege for voting for “skyrocketing debt, the failed stimulus, and Obamacare” before he had hired a campaign manager.

We’re all used to political attack ads hijacking television the summer before an election. This year’s barrage started the summer before the summer before the election, and in some cases well before that. The quaint old election calendar, which candidates and their party allies follow through the primaries and into the general election, no longer sets the campaign season’s schedule. Instead, rich donors and independent groups now run their own parallel campaigns at an accelerated pace, in an effort to get a jump on influencing the issues and outcomes. The early ad blitz suggests that such outside spending could rival fundraising by candidates and parties, says Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. “That means the candidates’ voices, particularly in campaigns for Congress, are going to be drowned out.”