Close to Home: Voters beware of those late campaign fliers

The daily pileup of political fliers in our mailboxes (real or virtual) is upon us. All of them have been designed by advertising specialists with a view toward shaping our voting patterns in Tuesday's primary election.

It is simply a facet of modern life that there are few commercial or philanthropic ventures of any kind that can succeed in today's market environment without the help of those who are well-versed in the artistic and psychological techniques of selling a product, or shaping public opinion, for those who employ them.

Once a matter of controversy, few today question the sway of advertising in our lives. Through the "branding" of "commodities," whether material (perfume), human (a political candidate) or a natural resource (water), we are all in the thrall of the world of advertising. Media references to "Brand Obama" barely raise an eyebrow; in the hands of advertising experts, even the definition of happiness has been integrally linked to consumer spending. It has been a giant fiat for the American advertising industry that it helped generate a consumer culture that is the envy of the world.

Viewers of the TV series "Mad Men," about an advertising firm set in the 1960s, are well familiar with the techniques devised in "Creative," the branch of the firm that works on the graphic design, color and catchy slogans to promote products as diverse as baked beans or presidential candidates. Certain of the persuasion tactics portrayed in "Mad Men" are still in wide use. When it comes to political fliers, a well-honed technique is to "brand" the candidate with a wholesome image, and then, just days prior to the election, to distribute "hit" fliers demonizing the candidate's opponent, for whom it is then too late to respond.

Tactics such as these are legion, and not infrequently responsible for destroying otherwise promising careers. Political consultant and public relations specialist Frank Luntz commented on this practice when he said: "Manipulating public attitudes isn't all that hard to do . . . Ignorance makes it easier to manipulate the voters at election time."

Who would guess that the person who set all this in motion was the talented nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays, who is often credited as the "father of public relations"?

In 1917, Bernays had been in the employ of the Committee on Public Information, the expansive government propaganda arm charged with "selling" the American entry into World War I. The entire media resources of the country, in conjunction with academic disciplines (notably psychology) were put to work to create the demonizing imagery associated with the enemy "Hun," while simultaneously crafting the heroic and noble attributes of all connected to the Allied struggle against the Germans.

After the war, Bernay's entrepreneurial brilliance lay in his grafting the same techniques for rallying the citizenry during the war to the private, commercial sector. Advertising was now in the hands of "public relations" firms whose expertise lay in using the full range of human needs and anxieties to sell products as diverse as bacon and eggs to an array of foreign military ventures. The persuasion arts have since become so successful that the American public relations industry is among the most powerful in the corporate world.

Much of this — not unreasonably — plays into the public's cynicism about local and national politics. Still, one can retrieve a modicum of freedom from the influence of PR firms in political campaigns through a little online research. Research can reveal the candidates supported by groups with a history of integrity and transparency, or expose those on the receiving end of "dark money" (money that drifts from groups that hide their association with organizations exempt from disclosure laws). One can thereby derive some inspiration in the last segment of the adage: ". . . but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Some voters still do their homework.

Donna Brasset-Shearer of Petaluma is a cultural-anthropologist with a background in international relations. She has taught courses on Iran at Sonoma State University and is one of two community members of The Press Democrat Editorial Board.