What are some funny ads?

What are some political "anti-ads" - that is, ads against the concept of political ads?

• It seems to be that if your opponent is flooding the airwaves and you don't have as much money, the best choice would be to try to use their strength against them: run ads suggesting that the volume of ads on the other side are just an annoying, dishonest attempt to buy votes. If your opponent is funded by an industry that everyone has to buy from - like oil or insurance - you could even say "they're using your own money to buy your vote". Has anyone tried this strategy? Is there any data to suggest how well it worked? Video links appreciated.

• Answer:

  I think that this would be a very interesting strategy for a candidate to use, but I'm just not sure if there's a candidate for national office that doesn't have some connection to a big business where this kind of thing wouldn't backfire.  That's a sad thing to say, obviously, but I think even some of the crusaders against big money in politics still have some businesses that are backing their campaigns.  In reality, nearly all political candidates are backed by someone with money, just take a look at this chart: The point is that money goes into both sides, so it would be difficult for someone to completely denounce the practice of receiving big campaign donations.  The easier way to do this is to essentially do what Rick Santorum did during his 2012 bid for the Presidency and reference how wildly outspent he was.  As you can see from the chart the richer you are the more likely you are to give to a Republican.  That makes sense because you want to protect your money whereas the people who don't make as much money as those at the top want to get to the top. The easy answer to this question is that it's really difficult for a candidate to not accept money if they're running for office and it's even harder for candidates to put out a message that they're not taking big money even if they did.  Even a candidate like Elizabeth Warren does have some financial backing from people that the campaign would rather not have attention focused on.  One of the big reasons that it's easy for politicians to attack big money in the abstract is because they then don't have to defend the fact that they themselves take the very donations that they claim to deplore.  It was quite strange watching John McCain on Face the Nation last week deploring the use of big money in campaigns, but defending the rights of corporations to have an "equal voice" in democracy.  That's the kind of double-talk that he used to avoid and I think that the political reality is that you just can't avoid getting in bed with big moneyed interests if you're in national politics. The duplicitous area in your question is that it would be quite difficult to bury someone who's outspending you and running tons of vicious ads by running ads of your own denouncing them.  This may seem like an obvious strategy; if your opponent is smearing you, just point it out and the people, in their infinite wisdom, will see the virtue in what you're trying to do.  Politics is much more complicated than that. First off, the ad time for a political campaign is all bought in advance, so there would be no way to really "know" that your opponent is going negative when you make the ad buys and even if you assumed that was the case how would you put together an ad that could be produced, edited, and cleared by the networks in time to go on TV?  Second, let's say you're President Obama and you know that your opponent is going to have to run a negative campaign, what can you possibly do to counter that?  Point out the fact that your opponent is in the pockets of major corporations?  Possibly, but is that the best way to make your case to the American people?  Probably not. There is a threshold test that challengers need to meet to defeat an incumbent, so the best strategy might not be the strategy that says point out the fact that your opponent is in bed with big business and you're in the clear.  If you're President Obama, most people already have a strong opinion about you and likely won't be disuaded by the fact that the other guy is in the pocket of big business because they have a choice between two candidates and if they don't like the President they're probably going to vote for the other guy simply because it will make them feel better.  For those who don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, pointing out that the other guy is backed by big business has been effective for the President.  Pointing out Mitt Romney's decisions while CEO of Bain Capital have raised serious questions about whose interests he would look out for as President.  This is a clear example of exactly what you're outlining here with your question, but the Obama campaign is hoping that while they're making that argument the other side doesn't point out the amount of money that they have taken from big business as well.  It's a tough strategy to finesse and I think that's why it's not wholeheartedly embraced by a lot of politicians.  Outside of the Bain ads, the closest thing to an ad like the one you're describing that I've seen was an ad run by Russ Feingold in 2010.  It was the "dancing in the end zone" ad and it was up for all of 24 hours before various groups demanded that he take it down.  Feingold obviously was one of the good guys on this issue, he's done more for campaign finance reform than most politicians could dream of doing and in the end it ruined his career.  I think a lot of politicians look at him and see an example of what happens when you challenge money in politics.