Advertising hard sell for US voters

By Jim Fitzpatrick BBC NI Politics Show

So what if Sarah Palin's campaign team have spent $150,000 on clothes for the vice-presidential candidate?

It seems like a lot of money, but it's nothing compared to the budget for advertising.

So far, John McCain's team have spent more than $117,000,000 on national advertising. Say that out loud and slowly: one hundred and seventeen million dollars.

And Obama's people have spent an eye-watering $240,000,000: two hundred and forty million dollars.

It might not go down too well during the credit crunch, that the hockey mum from Wasilla can spend more on clothes in a couple of months than "Joe Sixpack" or "Joe the Plumber" can expect to earn in a couple of years, but it's all part of the expensive game of presidential politics.

Style over substance? I'm not so sure.

This week the US Consulate in Belfast hosted an inter-varsity debate between Queen's and the University of Ulster on the presidential election. Queen's were arguing for Obama and they won.

What was interesting was how their, at times caustic and irreverent, debating style seemed to irritate some members of the audience, many of whom were US citizens.

In the US, the real debate takes place during the ad breaks on television

In the US, the formal political debates are respectful and dignified.

The moderator rarely intervenes to challenge an unanswered question and the debating candidates rarely talk over each other or interrupt. Dignified, but dull.

Here, our politicians tend to enjoy arguing in public.

Take Prime Minister's Questions. Each week, the prime minister stands several feet away from his political opponent in a hall that was intentionally designed to be too small so that people would have to squeeze onto benches like spectators at a cage fight while the two leaders slug it out, egged on by whoops and jeers from all sides.

I'll say nothing about the Northern Ireland Assembly, because for the purposes of this article I would like to compare and contrast two functioning political systems and I'm not sure that the Dick and Dora delivery on display at Stormont qualifies as a "style".

So, back to the US where Senate debates are even duller than the television encounters between candidates.

If you thought drugs were involved, you'd have to say Westminster has been snorting speed by the bucketload while Washington has ingested more jellies than prescriptions allow.

In the US, the real debate takes place during the ad breaks on television. Hence the aforementioned gargantuan spend. They're engaging, entertaining and often negative.

You can view a number on the CNN website and they're worth a look

Thanks to the ads, when they elect a president on 4 November, American voters do so with a pretty good appreciation of where their guy stands on the issues.

Let's face it, who reads manifestoes or watches party political broadcasts?

And because they haven't seen Barack Obama or John McCain rant and rave at each other for spectator sport, it allows the nasty things in the ads to be forgotten on inauguration day and the victor to assume the role of president of all the people.

So, really it's more a case of style AND substance, than one over the other.

On the Politics Show this week we'll return to our own brand of local politics which is all substance and no style. But we know you wouldn't have it any other way.

See you then,

Jim

PS: To those who claim that US elections are superficial, I say nonsense.

Just take this piece of startling information about the Republican hopeful: "(McCain's) buttocks are unremarkable except for some very light tan freckling."

We have John McCain's oncologist, Dr Suzanne Connolly of the Mayo Clinic, to thank for that. And the federal law which requires candidates to open their medical records to the public. Just imagine if such a law were in place here. On second thoughts, better not.