Let the ad wars begin! An interesting piece from AdAge magazine examines the advertising approach — born of the purported millions of dollars flowing into affiliated super PACs — of President Barack Obama and the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney as the General Election gets into swing:

“As the general-election season kicks off, President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will be looking to weave competing narratives out of the same set of numbers, analysts say. While crucial undecided voters most likely aren’t paying attention yet, the campaigns and their affiliated Super PACS are testing out approaches in key swing states.”  

What’s interesting about this piece is that, like many other reporters, the writer is acknowledging the “dirty secret” about negative campaign ads. Namely, that they work. Why they work is a question for social scientists but there’s little doubt they do. That being said, is it clear-headed to infer that politics has gotten nastier and this is somehow a bad thing? Isn’t it just as true to suggest that politics — particularly political ads — are simply serving the voting public what they want? In other words, who’s driving the negativity train, the public or creators of campaign ads?

What’s most interesting, however, is that, after reading a statement like this:

“But ‘at this point both campaigns are using advertising as symbolic messages to reach party loyalists,’ said Nathan Gonzales, deputy editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. ‘They are trying to advance a narrative.'”  

And related reports that millions of dollars are being spent on boths sides in an effort to produce these ads, can there be any doubt that money does in fact equal speech in political campaigning?