Watching TV in Boston

Your TV isn't everyone else's TV

Now I understand why people in battleground states don't bother to vote.

There is a media silo of your choice of what to watch or read.   If you don't watch Fox or read Breitbart or listen to AM talk radio then you simply don't see the reality that strong Trump supporters see.   In their world, the economy is worse today than it was 7 years ago in the financial crisis, a major story is Hillary Clinton having been a court appointed attorney for a man accused of raping a 12 year old, Trump is valiantly fighting back from being accused of locker room talk, and Trump overwhelming won the 2nd debate.   The Friday videotape story is covered but from a specific angle: the media bias against Trump, of the hypocrisy of Bill and Hillary Clinton whose actions were worse than Trump's, and of Trump being undermined by the tepidness of support from Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.

People who watch CNN or other channels, or read the NY Times or Washington Post get another view of things:  Hillary is probably ahead in the polls, the Friday tape of Trump was shocking in its vulgarity.

There are two media silos:  Mainstream vs. Fox et al.   You don't see what you don't see and if you don't see it you don't quite comprehend the other world.

There is a second silo: your own media market.   I live in Medford, Oregon (approximate market size #140) and have watched relatively few political ads on TV.   Oregon is not a battleground state.  Ron Wyden has a cakewalk re-election as US Senator.  The state senate race had minimal TV ads as of now.  The only close statewide race is for Secretary of State (Dennis Richardson vs. Brad Avakian) has not yet been a big money race and I have not yet seen a TV ad for either of them.

Meanwhile, Boston.   If you don't live in a battleground area you simply do not understand what TV looks like.    TV news shows are nonstop political ads here.   And what is fascinating is how inefficient the advertising is.     Southern New Hampshire is part of the Boston media market and  Boston is approximately media market number 8 or 9 in America--about the size of Houston or Atlanta or Washington, DC.   Massachusetts, of course, is bright blue and no prudent presidential campaign would waste money advertising to the Massachusetts market.

And this was back in the PRIMARY

But New Hampshire is a major battleground with 4 electoral votes (two senators, two congressmen) and nearly all the NH voters get their media from Boston.  So I am watching an extraordinary waste of money, in the sense that I am watching ads directed to people out of state, simply a corner of the greater Boston media market.

And what I am seeing is shocking to me, since it is so different from Medford.   About 90 percent of all commercials on TV news shows are  political ads. 

Kelly Ayotte is the Republican US Senator, being contested by the Democratic NH governor Maggie Hassan.  Ayotte presents herself in her ads as bipartisan and someone unhappy with both presidential candidates and her ads show an unattractive black and white photographed Hassan, who is too great a risk to elect what with photographs of people running down the street fleeing Muslim terrorists.   Maggie Hassan is bright and sunny in her own ads, and she says that Ayotte is the one who "puts us at risk" because she opposes background checks on guns and has become a "typical Washington politician." It is all very predictable.   I see about 3 advertisements for each candidate every half hour.

Hillary ad:  a Republican who dislikes Trump

Meanwhile, there are about 3 presidential ads per half hour, both for Trump and Clinton.   Trump's positive ads show a sample of people working in blue collar jobs with the assurance that workers will get free maternity leave and be swamped with jobs returning to America.  The negative ads show a quick sample of people angry at being called "deplorable" ending with an unattractive black and white photo of Clinton who feels contempt for Americans.   Hillary's positive ads show her aging while making the same comments on the care for children making the point that she has a lifetime of concern for Americans.  Her negative ads quote Trump saying harsh things against people in her coalition.  A new ad shows a cute ten year old boy with a limp saying he feels dissed by Trump's comments on a disabled reporter.

I have a simple point:  If you do not live in a battleground state you don't see what people see in battleground states, or in the case of Boston a media market near a battleground state.   It is possible to live in Oregon and think that politics is a battle of messages and people.

But people in a battlergound state get another media message, that politics is really really ugly.   So many of the ads are negative that it helps explain to me why so many people do not vote.  The ads mix positive and negative but the overall tone is that politicians have contempt for you, that they are gross hypocrites, that once elected they become "typical politicians" which denotes that they are dishonest.   The back and forth of positive and negative does not leave an impression of good vs. bad.  It leaves one of bad vs. hypocrite pretending to be good.

I contrast the meta message of politics with the meta message of sports.  Here is what you do not see in sports broadcasting: harsh criticism of the integrity of the game and players.  Very occasionally there are comments by announcers and players that a referee call was inaccurate, but players in the game do not trash the game.  They don't characterize the game as one of players intentionally fumbling the ball to please a bookie in New Jersey, or throwing a ball rather than a strike because they are intentionally making room for an extra commercial.  There is a notion of sportsmanship and there is a consensus communicated to the public that they are seeing an honest contest by people actually trying to win.

The players in politics criticize the integrity of the system itself.  Trump says the election count is "rigged" and everyone says that the players in the game are dishonest and that the game is corrupted and voters are being lied to.  Imagine bothering to watch sports events if the consensus was that all the players are cheating and have a corrupt self-serving interest that makes the event a sham.  

The message is pervasive in exactly the states (here, New Hampshire) where the decision is close and where whether people turn out to vote or not is critical.  Being in a place where the election is close and a vote really matters turns out to have the odd and unintuitive result: you realize that the whole game is corrupt and your vote doesn't really matter after all.

Wait.  There is even more!   That's right, there is also a podcast.  Thad Guyer and I hash out the meaning of the current polls.  We disagree on what data is real and relevant.  We discuss the videotape and the debate and Bill Clinton and whether or not Trump can stick to issues that have popular appeal with, maybe, enough voters to get him elected.

Click Here: Disaster for Trump? Maybe not. Hear us out