In politics, the focus, at times, moves away from the issues that are important to voters to the personalities of the people who are running for office. Instead of debating the pros and cons of the issues at hand, politicians revert to personal attacks. In doing so, the focus is often taken off of the important issues in a campaign and instead, placed on the candidates’ beliefs and ideals or events from their past. This is a very effective and often used method in politics today. Politicians use this tactic often in advertising or during debates, calling their opponents names such as “socialists,” or even “scumbags,” or introducing information about a person that has absolutely no bearing on the campaign, in order to confuse the voters and avoid discussing the real issues. …show more content…
For example, in the 2013 Houston mayoral race, current Houston mayor, Annise Parker, during the last two weeks of the campaign, began to shift her focus from the issues of the campaign to whether her opponent, Ben Hall, was qualified to be mayor based on events from his past. In ads that were run on Houston television, Parker said, “He hasn’t bothered to vote in a city election in eleven years.” It also said that “In fact, Hall didn’t even live in Houston. Just last year he bought a house inside the city limits so that he could run for mayor.” In another television commercial, Parker claimed that voters couldn’t trust Ben Hall. “Millionaire Ben Hall doesn’t believe in playing by the rules, especially on taxes.” These are both examples of ad hominem because, instead of Parker running ads about Hall’s political interests, the Parker campaign ran ads about his voting record, where he lives and his tax affairs. These things really had nothing to do with his position on the issues of the campaign, instead were an attempt for voters to draw negative opinions about