Neil Wollman and Leonard Williams: Truth in Advertising: An Honesty Pledge by Obama and McCain

Each presidential election, we have renewed complaints from citizens, pundits, and the campaigns themselves about the influence of negative ads. This year, as a number of "fact checks" have pointed out, the campaigns seem to have reached a new low. The daily barrage of new ads has yielded a wealth of exaggerations, misrepresentations, half-truths, and outright lies. One candidate's ads say that his opponent supports sex education for young children or plans tax increases for the middle class. The other candidate responds with ads suggesting that his opponent seeks a 100-year-war in Iraq or plans to cut Social Security benefits in half.

There are many things wrong with misleading or dishonest ads, but the biggest negative effect is damage to the electoral process itself. The country desperately needs to change its political discourse, to get beyond the petty partisanship and personal attacks that many Americans rightly denounce. Indeed, just as a viable democracy needs an informed public, a fair and legitimate election requires that the public be able to judge the candidates' positions and qualifications with accuracy.

How can the process be improved? Let's ask that both candidates pledge, publicly and in writing, to stay with the facts in the ads that they approve. Clean campaign pledges have been proposed before, to be sure, but this one would be different. The honest ad pledge that we propose would be monitored by an impartial group. In the words of former President Reagan, "Trust, but verify."

Candidates taking this pledge would not air an ad that has not been vetted by one or more respected, neutral bodies such as FactCheck.org or PolitiFact.com. Ads in preparation would be fact-checked, with their contents kept confidential, before the campaigns could air the ads or post them online. If the fact-checkers find misrepresentations or falsehoods, then the ads would have to be rewritten and checked again until they met the standards of accuracy and truthfulness. Obama and McCain teams would meet jointly with the chosen fact checking group(s) to determine all ground rules. Ads that passed the fact-check process would air after earning the political equivalent of an "Energy Star" logo or a "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."

If Senators Obama and McCain agree to this in the heat of one of the closest election campaigns ever, think of the progress we could make. We could ask that the Democratic and Republican National Committees each agree to a similar pledge. Congressional and gubernatorial candidates could do so as well in their respective districts and states. Political action committees and other independent groups who produce and air misleading or dishonest ads would be rightly challenged by all parties concerned. The honest ad pledge could even require that all candidates agree to immediately, publicly, and forcefully condemn any third party ads deemed dishonest by our panel of fact-checkers.

If a candidate believes that the other side has been less than factual in ads, such a pledge would give that candidate the opportunity to keep his or her opponent honest. Candidates who refuse to take the honest ad pledge could be shamed by the public into doing so. If only one candidate takes the pledge, then voters could discount all the ads aired by his or her opponent -- and even refuse to vote for any candidate who does not submit ads to be fact-checked.

At this point, citizens concerned about the quality of our election campaigns need to express themselves in no uncertain terms. Pundits in the media need to speak up, as well. Let's all urge the candidates to lend their support to an honest ad pledge. Given the lateness of the hour and our experience in the last few months, we need to start this process now if we expect to change the tone of the current campaign.

Decades of negative, misleading, and dishonest ads have hurt our political discourse and undermined our electoral system. While getting rid of all negative ads may not be feasible, getting rid of the most dishonest ads is still quite possible. If we act now to reverse the damage, we can make great progress toward establishing the fairness of this election. At the very least, we can begin to ensure the credibility and fairness of future ones -- perhaps at all levels of government.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Neil Wollman, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow, Bentley Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility at Bentley College, Waltham, MA; and Leonard Williams, Ph.D. is a Professor of Political Science, Chair of the Department of History & Political Science at Manchester College, North Manchester, IN.

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