Political advertising is boring. No matter who the candidate is or what the issue, today's ads have nothing more to offer than shouting with a whisper that the other side sucks. Perhaps that was good enough for the political campaigns of the olden days, but the complex post-modern world in which we live cries out for something more.
My own modest proposal is to move the discourse from "the other side sucks" to "the other side sucks though not as bad as some people think." I propose that all political broadcast advertising be required to include at least one positive fact of the opposition's choice. For example, the President's team could require that ads criticizing the disposition of federal money from the 2009 Recovery Act include the fact that a third of that spending was in the form of tax-cuts for both individuals and corporations (which some would say are people too). On the flip side, those in charge of the Romney campaign could dictate that ads slamming the former governor's Swiss bank accounts and offshore holdings in the Cayman Islands note that Mr. Romney is a devoted family man.
Obviously, such a rule would be virtually impossible to administer. The federal government (i.e. The FCC) couldn't possibly do so because of the First Amendment issues, and there's really no other entity with sufficient scope. This kind of shift towards balance and respect for one's opponent would have to happen from the ground up with the candidates and their teams (not to mention their PACs). In a political climate whose escalation of rhetoric makes the US-Soviet arms race look tame, that seems about as likely as Superman eating a Kryptonite sandwich.
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