Would Lincoln Be Elected Today?

This Wednesday night I had the privilege of listening to an amazing speaker. My friends and I ran over to Duke Family Performance Hall and flew up the stairs to get a middle seat on the second level of the theatre, sitting at 6:58pm. We stared ahead or looked down at the crowd below as we waited for the event to begin. At 7:10, Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson was introduced to the crowd. Dr. Jamieson has written a total of 16 books, has been featured on Bill Moyers' show, Washington Post, CBS, and others. An article was written about her this week in the Charlotte Observer, honoring her for her work. She is Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at University of Pennsylvania. She runs a site, FactCheck.org, and a sister/daughter site, FlackCheck.org. Both are very useful tools for thinning out the deceptions and lies inherent in political ad campaigns.

The crux of her political mission is to get the false ads and lies out of political campaigns. One way she does this is through FlackCheck, where there is an option to email your local stations, demanding they only air ads that are factually accurate. Stations can turn down independent ads (those by Super PACs are to be accented here) if the manager of the station is even a little bit worried about the factuality of the ad. Jamieson believes that the advertiser has the responsibility to keep ads factual and the manager has the responsibility to turn away ads if she doubts the credibility of the ad's facts.