Choices that these candidates have made in the past are most definitely going to affect how they feel about certain issues. However, "judging a book by its cover" comes into play here and brings up the fact that you can't judge a person solely on their past actions or inactions. A commercial that spends 28 seconds claiming that candidate A doesn't support ______ and has worked hard to fight against ______ followed by two seconds of, "I'm candidate B and I support this message," does not make me want to vote for either of these candidates. First, it makes me want to research candidate A and look into what his or her past mistakes really were and what he or she is planning on doing differently now and in the future. Second, why would a commercial completely bashing candidate A and saying absolutely nothing about candidate B encourage me to vote for candidate B?
I have to give lots of credit to those candidates who choose to utilize their full 30 seconds by promoting themselves. By talking about their own mistakes and communicating how they plan to work on certain issues, they are putting themselves in a very high position. In my opinion, if you are a good enough candidate you should not have to put down everyone else in order to make yourself look good. You should be able to run on the appeal of your characteristics alone.
