The Political Ads are Unreal Tonight! (Fairfax: home, legally, to move)

[ChristineVA]

Are these ads being targeted hard to every area or just specific political demographics? I am in PWC and there have been so many ads broadcast over and over and over. The money these campaigns spend is breathtaking.

[Badger21]

It's disgusting. both sides.

It's a fact though that these negative campaign ads really work and the only way to change them is to change the game. The fact that elections are covered like a "game" is probably a good place to start.

[leighland]

Nights like this really make me thankful for NetFlix

[sullyguy]

Interesting - not being one to watch "regular" TV I almost never see any political TV ads - get lots and lots of flyers in regular mail, however, mostly telling me how bipartisan some Republican is or how bad some Democrat is - and that's ALMOST it - the Democrat ads telling me how bad the Republicans are or how good some Democrat is much fewer (like probably at least 5:1 R to D ad ratio); I think only the guy (Nguyen) running against LeMunyon has exclusively (I think) run positive ads ("Vote for me!" rather than "Don't vote for him!") - I could be wrong about that, though, since I just skim the ads to see the level of hatred expressed before trashing them so may lose count now and then. Speaking of hatred, have been getting Right to Life and some sort of "Liberty" letters that read AWFUL similarly that certainly APPEAR to be far right-ish yet bash LeMunyon - how strange. Good old Fairfax!

[sddorsey585]

Originally Posted by ChristineVA

Are these ads being targeted hard to every area or just specific political demographics? I am in PWC and there have been so many ads broadcast over and over and over. The money these campaigns spend is breathtaking.

I'm just sick of the cold calling to my phone. Does anyone know how to get rid of the calls? I get calls now three times a night!

[sullyguy]

Originally Posted by sddorsey585

I'm just sick of the cold calling to my phone. Does anyone know how to get rid of the calls? I get calls now three times a night!

We now use my personal cell phone AS our home phone and have a Costco-bought 5-handset Panasonic home system that Bluetooth-connects to that cell phone. The phone number is what I used to have as a landline. Anyway, to make this short story longer, the Panasonic system announces out loud who is calling or, if the number is not in its phone book, what the incoming phone number is: "Call from Grandma" or "Call from 7035554321". If we don't know the caller we simply don't answer the phone; this includes callers who entirely block Caller ID (note - a lot of the ads, not political, are spoofed numbers and being made illegally since we're on the Do Not Call list). Anyway, we literally have not answered a political call this season at all.

[mlv311]

Originally Posted by sullyguy

We now use my personal cell phone AS our home phone and have a Costco-bought 5-handset Panasonic home system that Bluetooth-connects to that cell phone. The phone number is what I used to have as a landline. Anyway, to make this short story longer, the Panasonic system announces out loud who is calling or, if the number is not in its phone book, what the incoming phone number is: "Call from Grandma" or "Call from 7035554321". If we don't know the caller we simply don't answer the phone; this includes callers who entirely block Caller ID (note - a lot of the ads, not political, are spoofed numbers and being made illegally since we're on the Do Not Call list). Anyway, we literally have not answered a political call this season at all.

That's what we do too - block the numbers. Yet, every week I use up the 30 numbers I can block and have to delete them and start all over again. That's how many we get.

[sullyguy]

Originally Posted by mlv311

That's what we do too - block the numbers. Yet, every week I use up the 30 numbers I can block and have to delete them and start all over again. That's how many we get.

Yes, we used to block numbers but, as you note, the limit on the ones to block is WAY too small! So we simply stopped blocking numbers and instead just don't answer unknown numbers - not quite as good as not even hearing the phone ring but none-the-less effective.

[Fredesch]

The election is Tuesday, it will all end soon. If you really don't like all the election ads, ask your state delegate and senator to move VA elections to even numbered years like federal elections are. That way you get a year of peace like most states have.

[Old Monkey]

The content of most political ads is cartoonishly simplistic and I doubt such ads are all that persuasive. I'd bet the principal motivation is just getting voters to the polls. We just tune them out---our minds were made up long ago.