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Originally posted by redlemon
I've been thinking the same thing. What if every political ad had to be reviewed by someone like FactCheck prior to general release? I'm sure some people would have free speech issues with this, but I think that it would be a necessary compromise.
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While an interesting idea, it raises lots of questions as well. I wouldn't care so much about the free speech implications (because it's only limiting a candidate's ability to say untruthful things in their campaign ads) but more about who the members of the "judgement panel" would be. Certainly it would be difficult to keep it independent and neutral.
Unfortunately it still wouldn't solve the cultural problem of the American voter. People are all too happy to shout against the other guy and believe what "their" guy is saying. The process you propose would probably help to clean up the crap in the short term (until the process is coerced by the parties) but their speeches would still be full of half truths.
Ideally I'd love to see people holding all elected officials responsible for the things they say and stop going the partisan route of "The Republicans" (or Democrats) are so bad because they made an ad that exaggerated the truth or used too liberal a definition of what a tax increase is. The first step toward that end is the press really challenging the assertions made rather than playing off them for ratings.