Saturday, November 6, 2010
#6: Appeal to Spite
An appeal to spite is usually used to reject what someone believes has been seen in all the past elections with advertisements that rally against an opposing party. For example, Jerry Brown’s campaign used a brilliant advertisement on television that made the current governor and the Republican candidate, Meg Whitman, seem very unappealing. Jerry Brown’s campaign used an advertisement that contained many audio and visual clips of both Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman separately, but each audio segment dictated phrases and sentences that were uttered by both individuals during both of their campaigns. They were 100% matched, word for word. The advertisement then questioned the public if this is what they desired. This was a brilliant smear move towards the Republican campaign – it demonstrated their lack of ability to fix California’s issues, and in essence, broken promises. This argument is an excellent argument, with a very convincing message. Due to the election results, I would say the advertisement did the job it was meant to do.
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I like that you gave descriptive examples of appealing to emotions, appeal to spite. Your examples are all good and easy to understand because we all have seen the commercials from the most recent election. The commercial you describe I saw several times the week before the election took place. Because I watch television a lot, I saw many commercials about Barbara Boxer and Carla Fiorina (running for Senate) and Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman (running for governor). These commercials all attacked the opponent and made them selves be shining stars. The commercials effectively get attention from viewers and convince them of who to not vote for.
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