There was an interesting discussion on CBC’s Sunday Morning last weekend amongst pollsters and a marketing professor from the US about attack ads. Mainly the discussion was about how well these ads work and why they work. Little was said about their value as a way of informing voters about issues. Little was said about the bearing of the truth or falsity of these ads on voter understanding of the isues or the candidates for that matter.

There seemed to be a view that if they either supported your base or discredited your opponents they were fine. It was even argued that these ads were informative and needed to allow voters to make informed choices! But if these ads distort, lie, trade on prejudice and so on how can it be said they are useful in  political discourse? There is a law in economics called Gresham’s Law. The idea is that if bad coinage circulates good coinage is withheld. The bad coin drives out the good. Is this law at work in political discourse?