I’m getting rather tired of the latest radio ad campaign by the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission. I’m sure you’ve heard this fake “man on the street” promotion that supposed to “educate” the public about  tax funding for state candidates.

“Let’s go talk to a waitress,” the announcer says. “Let’s hear from a lumberjack.” “What does this college student think?” The splits-second answers from the actors pretending to fill these everyday roles all boil down to “Clean Elections is great!”

The ads so poorly imitate true street interviews that the first time I heard one, I wanted to know if the commission’s PR firm really doesn’t recognize lousy acting or if ad was supposed to be sardonic and somewhat campy (It’s so bad, it’s good). I’ve decided it must be the latter, since the last two “interviews” are with a pirate (“Arrrggh” is all he has to say about giving tax dollars to candidates) and a mime. (Yes, she stays silent.)

So maybe the commission and its PR machine deserve a single point for cleverness. But I’m annoyed by the idea that the Clean Elections commission is spending hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to promote itself so shamelessly.

The 1998 initiative that created Arizona’s campaign public financing system says the commission must use up to 10 percent of its annual funding for voter education. The state agency does a few good things with this money, such as printing candidate publicity pamphlets for primary and general elections, and sponsoring debates in all statewide and legislative races.

But the Clean Election commission apparently has far more money available than it can spend on legitimate ways to help residents understand how public campaign funding works and how they might participate. So a large chunk of the “voter education” spending goes into generic, feel-good self-promotion, such as these “man on the street” radio ads.

The commission does this because of past efforts by critics of public campaign finances to undercut or repeal the 1998 law. That would put the commission out of business or render it largely meaningless. So the commission takes advantage of the excess funds on hand to essentially beg Arizonans to “please love us.”

We don’t know if this blatant image polishing has had much effect, since the critics have never managed to bring any of their proposals back to the voters. But only those people who care far more about preserving campaign public funding than frugal spending of tax dollars can justify such exasperating publicity.

Posted in: Election issues |

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