Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast, number 825, Political Advertising.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 825.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This dialogue in this episode is about advertising in politics.
Let's get started.
The election is still two months away, and I'm already sick of the political ads.
Look at these flyers we got in the mail just today, not to mention the canvassers ringing our doorbell nonstop.
It's worse if you watch TV with attack ad after attack ad.
It's gotten completely out of hand.
What happened to campaign finance reform?
After years of talking about it, we still have lots of political action committees using soft money to finance media campaigns.
You can't even call them media campaigns anymore.
They're more like smear campaigns.
I'm fed up with all of this propaganda.
You know what we should do?
What?
We should take a vacation until the election is over in Thailand.
Our dialogue begins with Hillary, not Hillary Clinton, no relation.
Hillary saying the election is still two months away and I'm already sick of the political ads.
The election is the process of selecting someone for a public office, typically.
In a democracy, people vote in the election, and the person with the most votes wins.
Hillary, however, says that the election is still two months away, meaning it's two months from now.
She's already sick of the political ads.
To be sick of something means to be tired of something.
This is different than saying I'm sick.
When you say I'm sick, you mean you are physically ill.
There's something wrong with your body or perhaps your brain.
I think that's my problem, the brain problem.
Anyway, to be sick of something means to be tired of something.
You no longer want to hear it or be part of it.
Hillary is sick of political ads.
Ads is short for advertisements.
Political relates, of course, to typically government offices, government offices and their elections.
So political ads would be advertisements you would see on the television or hear on the radio, usually about one person who wants to become president or senator or whatever the election is about.
Hillary says, look at these flyers we got in the mail just today.
A flyer, F-L-Y-E-R here means a piece of paper that has writing on it often some sort of picture or photograph that's used to describe either an event or, in this case, a certain political candidate, someone who is trying to get elected to a job, a political job.
Hillary says, look at these flyers we got in the mail just today.
Not to mention the canvassers ringing our doorbell nonstop.
A canvasser C-A-N-V-A-S-S-E-R is a person who goes from one house to another, knocks on your door or rings your doorbell and tries to convince you to vote for a certain person or perhaps to support a certain political cause.
The doorbell is an electronic device that you can press that makes a noise, and that noise indicates there's someone at your front door, the front door of your house or apartment, who wants to get in or to talk to you.
The verb we use when we make a sound with a bell is ring, and so we have the expression to ring a doorbell.
To ring a doorbell non-stop would mean continuously, without stopping, without a break.
Anything you do non-stop is something that is done without interruption.
Bill, no relation to Bill Clinton.
Bill says it's worse if you watch TV with attack ad after attack ad.
An attack a t, t a c k ad is a very usually negative political advertisement that criticizes very strongly one of the people in the election.
Usually one person will be criticizing the other person.
They may be attacking their political positions or they may be criticizing their personal behavior.
American elections, unlike some elections in other countries, is often very influenced by these personal issues.
Bill says it's gotten completely out of hand.
The expression out of hand, H-A-N-D, means out of control.
There's too much of something.
It's gone too far.
These attack ads have gotten completely out of hand.
They've become too extreme.
They've become something that doesn't have reasonable limits anymore.
Hillary says, what's happening to campaign finance reform?
The expression campaign finance reform has three words.
Campaign, which refers to the process of someone trying to get elected to a political office.
Which refers to money and reform, which refers to trying to change things.
Putting those three words together you get a term that is used to describe people's efforts in the past several years in the US to try to make elections more fair, and Nowadays, if you have a lot of money, you have a better chance of being elected to a political office.
Campaign finance reform tried to equal the contributions, mostly by having the government give candidates money to run for political office or limiting the amount of money you could spend.
It hasn't been very successful in the United States, but we won't talk about that right now.
Hillary's asking the question, what happened to campaign finance reform?
After years of talking about it, we still have lots of political action committees using soft money to finance media campaigns.
Three terms there.
First, political action committees are organizations that take their money and buy advertisements or try to influence the public about either a certain political issue or a certain political candidate, someone who's trying to become governor or senator or president, whatever the elected office is.
Political action committees are not under control of the person who's running for president or running for senator who's trying to become president.
For example, political action committees are independent.
Soft money. is money that is donated to a political organization, but not directly to the candidate.
So it's money you would give to a political action committee which we often refer to by its acronym PAC.
You give money to a PAC, and that way you can avoid any legal limits on the amount of money you can give directly to a candidate.
Part of campaign finance reform in the United States involves limiting the amount of money any one person can give another person to run for office to try to win an election.
But if you give money to a PAC, you can avoid that limit.
That's why we call it soft money.
It's easier to move around.
Media campaigns refer to television advertisements, Internet advertisements, radio ads.
All of those are part of media campaigns.
Bill says you can't even call them media campaigns anymore.
They're more like smear campaigns.
To smear S-M-E-A-R as a verb means to say something false about someone else, to say something bad about someone else.
That is not true.
You hurt that person's reputation.
You make people think that that person is a bad person.
That's to smear someone.
So a smear campaign would be an organized we might say coordinated effort to try to make another person look bad, especially in a political campaign, in an election campaign.
Bill says, I'm fed up with all of this propaganda.
To be fed up is a phrasal verb meaning to be very frustrated, to be tired of something, to not want to have anything to do with this anymore.
You just want it to stop.
Bill says he's fed up with all of this propaganda.
Propaganda.
P-R-O-P-A-G-A-N-D-A is biased information that only gives one side of the story or one perspective.
Governments often use information to try to influence people, to create a certain impression.
And when that information is either false or one-sided, that is, it doesn't give a proper perspective, a proper view of the whole situation.
We might call that information propaganda.
Hillary says, you know what we should do?
Bill says, what?
Hillary says, we should take a vacation until the election is over.
Meaning we should leave, take a vacation until after the election is finished.
We should take a vacation until the election is over in Thailand, meaning they should go to the country of Thailand.
They should leave the country so they would not have to hear anything more about the political campaign.
Unfortunately nowadays, with the Internet, it's almost impossible to escape from the news of your country, even when you go to another country.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
The election is still two months away, and I'm already sick of the political ads.
Look at these flyers we got in the mail just today, not to mention the canvassers ringing our doorbell nonstop.
It's worse if you watch TV, with attack ad after attack ad.
It's gotten completely out of hand.
What happened to campaign finance reform?
After years of talking about it, we still have lots of political action committees using soft money to finance media campaigns.
You can't even call them media campaigns anymore.
They're more like smear campaigns.
I'm fed up with all this propaganda.
You know what we should do?
What?
We should take a vacation until the election is over.
In Thailand.
Dr. Lucy Say works nonstop to provide you with the best possible scripts.
We thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
