I went from D to Liberation, problem solved!

No joke. The print ads just go straight to the trash and every time a political ad came on rhe TV I would hit the mute button, no matter whose ad it was as they are incessant, insulting, obnoxious, and just BS in general. During the local news programs the ads are just one after another so I finally just turned on closed captioning and left mute on full time as I feared I would wear out the mute button on my remote...

^^
insulting for sure. They all think we're stupid.

Too much money in politics. (Thank you Patriot Act). Too much money in sports. (Thank you TV networks).

I'm registered as NPA and this is one week's worth of junkmail. I don't know which is sadder, the waste of paper and money or the thought that someone would place their vote based on a glossy mailer.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/LMjZEc.jpg

I am getting more junk mail and phone calls/texts on the Ohio races than from Florida. I have not lived in Ohio for almost 8 years. FWIW, registered as NPA (no party affiliation), does not seem to stop the flood. Interesting thing is that I am only getting mail from one party.

If one only has a PO Box...where does all the crap go? 99% of my mailbox stuff is junk....I wanna be on the "Do not mail" list :(

I get very little mail out here in reliably blue WA, and frankly not that many TV or internet ads, with respect to the candidates. I guess the latter is not that surprising given the fact that the Google and Facebook use IA to figure out and tell their advertisers what I'm into. Read somewhere that the Google's most recent machine learning programs are apparently really good at determining voter registration and likely votes by analyzing browsing habits, search result selection patterns (for example, whether you click the paid ads, or the first, third, or fifth thing that comes up), dwell times on sites, and even unique mouse movement "signatures." Which is all kind of creepy. I asked my son-in-law, who works for the Google, about it, but he just gave an evil laugh.

The problem with using all this IA technology to customize and deliver only the stuff we like is that it creates an ever-narrower circle of influence that delivers us only information that we are likely to agree with or be pleased by. Facebook is especially good at analyzing what is written and read there and then offering up friend suggestions, so we are introduced to others who will likely share our views. This is cool if you want to meet other Porsche enthusiasts, but it tends to sharpen the focus only to narrow interests and points of view, including in matters political. To analogize an example from simpler times, I still get Hot Rod Magazine, but I really don't read it much any more, because I can zero in on the cars I'm interested in online. But in pre-web times, I read the whole thing straight through, and, in the process, widened my interest in cars beyond certain makes and models. Hell, I even got to like MOPARS. No more though--my browsing time is spent looking at only exactly what I want, which makes the discovery of or exposure to alternatives less likely.

As to getting flooded with ads, there is a lot of research that indicates that the more you hate them, the better they are working. It's all about repetition. When I had my business, I had a really good web and social media consultant who made me put out a newsletter every month, to be mailed to our clients. I told him it would be hard to write decent content every month, and he said it didn't matter. He said you don't care if they even read it. You just want your name showing up every month in their email. He showed me some of the research, and it was pretty compelling. So, like it or not, there is method to all this madness.

Yes, and it's based on how masses of people actually behave, not how they say they behave. Just about everyone says they hate ads and they are not effective. In retail, where there is a profit motive, if they weren't effective no one would spend time and money running them.
Political ads are different. There is no profit motive. They have money and no one is going to take a bigger vacation or get a bigger salary or a big promotion from not spending it. So they spend it all, wisely or not.

Ads work (mostly negative one's about the opponent from my mailbox), but the unlimited $, has gotten stupid imo. I don't have the answer yet....mebbe just let my mailbox disappear (or overflow) for a few weeks?

I probably get hammered more than most....we're swingers here and the epicenter for gerrymamdering :(....just another circus with lots of bad clown acting to observe...both sides.

It's already daylight....but cold....but before I go...

Watching the local news....a phone app that pulls up all of this "public info" about everyone on your "contact list", which party, when they've voted etc. :(. We are sheeple folks....baaaa(d)

Brrrr....I'm outa here though...

My wife and I are registered as independent and we get a lot of political junk mail . I have also received about 5 texts this past week from captain hair do . I believe in the voting process but when huge sums of money are involved the process goes to crap . I don't care what party is in power I just want them to work together for common goals that will benefit our country . That thought process apparently is long gone.

Gerrymandering helps keep the campaign crap down. I live in a heavily gerrymandered district in Ohio. My congressman is chosen by the party bosses long before the election. Same with the district next door. They hardly bother to campaign, so we hear practically nothing from them.