About this time in any election, voters are ready to turn off their TVs due to the influx of attack ads. Florida is currently full of them. Rick Scott and Charlie Crist are at each others’ throats. In North Florida, you can’t watch most TV shows without being bombarded by ads for Steve Southerland and Gwen Graham. In Miami, ads attacking Joe Garcia and Carlos Curbelo are on early and often. Even worse, attack ads are starting to bleed in from other states as Georgia politicians run TV spots in Tallahassee and Jacksonville.
But there’s a reason attack ads dominate the airwaves: they work. Amendment 2 is a good case in point.
At the start of the election, Amendment 2 looked like it was headed for easy passage. Polls showed strong support for medical marijuana from Democrats and independents, and with younger and middle-aged voters. Even the GOP faithful and seniors were behind it, if not to the same extent as other voters. Sure there were grumbles about John Morgan bringing out Amendment 2 to help Charlie Crist but it seemed like a slam dunk.
Over the last few months, opponents of Amendment 2 didn’t attack medical marijuana head on. They nibbled away at it, pointing to various loopholes ranging from background checks to parental consent. Soon enough a sizable segment of voters — including groups like Republicans and seniors who are the most likely to turn out in an off-year election — had soured on Amendment 2.
Morgan hasn’t helped the cause. His rambling, often profane and incoherent, speech at a rally for Amendment 2 was a disaster as it went viral. Critics accused Morgan of being more concerned with helping old employee Crist beat Rick Scott than in actually seeing Amendment 2 pass, something that wasn’t helped when he bailed on a debate in Tallahassee that was scheduled for Tuesday.
Amendment 2‘s collapse has been pretty dramatic. Most polls show it well below the 60 percent it needs to pass and opposition to it continues to rise. Every day for weeks now, ads running in Fort Myers, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Panama City, Pensacola, Tallahassee, Tampa and West Palm Beach have been shredding Amendment 2, causing doubts to rise in voters’ minds. In Florida, with its myriad markets, where voters in Little Havana have no idea or interest about issues over in Gadsden County, that matters.
Supporters of Amendment 2 have not been able to counter many of the attack ads which have hurt their cause. It’s proof once again that throwing mud works well in Florida. Attack ads are annoying and clutter up the airwaves — but they also work, as supporters of Amendment 2 know only too well.
Tallahassee political writer Jeff Henderson wrote this analysis exclusively for Sunshine State News.
