Religious Leaders Call For An End To Negative Campaign Ads

By: Candice Lee | NBC4i.com
Published: October 27, 2008

[dateline] --
A group of Ohio ministers made a plea to candidates this time last year to carry out sleaze free campaigns. The efforts of We Believe Ohio proved not as successful as they had wanted. They wanted to get all candidates in this election cycle to pledge to run clean campaigns. Just a handful in Central Ohio signed up.
    Reverend Tim Ahrens a founding member of the group says they were surprised by the lack of response by both the republican and democratic parties.
"I think some of the candidates, especially the newer ones, took their marching orders from the party leadership. So it has to begin one by one. But the leadership is significant in turning things around," stated Reverend Ahrens.
      State Representative Ted Celeste is no stranger to political mudslinging. During his first campaign for the 24th District seat he was attacked personally on television and by mail.
"It is really frustrating because the conventional wisdom of political advisors that this type of advertising works,” expressed Rep. Celeste.
     Reverend Ahrens tells NBC4 thanks to their calls and letters they were able to see a few ads stripped from the airways. But admit a new one soon took its place.
     Reverend Susan Smith says voters deserve better.
"I thin that the way these ads have been engineered is very confusing, usually when you think to vote no for something, you are voting because you expect something good to come out of it,” explained Reverend Smith.
We Believe Ohio hopes that in the final days of this campaign that the candidates change their tone and think of the people.

Religious Leaders Call For An End To Negative Campaign Ads

Share This:

More from this channel:

Reader Comments

Deal of the Day

More Ways to Connect

Most Popular

Top Videos

Also in the News

Things to Do