During the election period, politicians will stop at nothing in their campaigns to earn more votes. Campaign ads have become popular with the digital world. There are a lot of misstatements and fallacies that these politicians use in their campaign ads. Romney poured millions of dollars into his campaign based almost completely on various logical fallacies. These include;

1. Quoting out of context.

In his campaign ad, Romney attacked Obama’s statement, “You didn’t build that” and made it look like it had a different meaning (The Young Turks).In saying this, President Obama meant that an individualcould not build the economy or the infrastructure. It takes the whole USA to build the nation. The meaning of this was rather obvious form the context in which he used it. But Romney managed to twist this into something to mean something else.

2. Impracticable promises

In an online video,Romney promised to get rid of “burdensome regulations” and cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans in order to better the economy and make it stronger (PBS News Hour). This is, however, a promise to lure the masses because no regulations have been found so far to be burdensome as they all serve a certain important purpose. Further, it is not easy to implement this. This tactic uses empty promises so that people can vote with expectations that these things will be done for them.

3. The blame game

This is where one blames the cause of something on another. The AFP News Agency in an online video revealsthat Romney blamed the bad economy on President Obama. This is a fallacy because looking at the trend since December 2007, before Obama took to office, the recession in economy had alrfeadyh started. Some of the economic problems happened during the Bush administration. However, since Obama took office, the USA economy has added private sector jobs decreasing the levels of unemployment which went down to almost 2 percent during the Obama administration. Yet, Romney managed to accuse the Obama administration for bad economy.

4. Popular argument claimed to be true

Just because there are many people who support an agreement, it is regarded to be the true position. Just because many people believe in an argument or a proposition, it is asserted to be a good one. For example, using the phrase in “the American people believe” or “what the American people want”(Fortunata).This is usually not the case and is not a real argument. This cannot represent the whole citizenry of the country and does not really constitute the opinion of the citizens. It only represents a fraction of the citizens. This is not a good ground to show that the argument is true or acceptable.

5. Shifting the burden of proof to the other party

The burden of proof requires that he who alleges must prove but this is not the case during Romney campaigns. Amidst making many accusations against Obama, Rodney claimed that Hawaii is not Obama’s birthplace (spydat3k0), and argued that Obama should be the one to prove that these allegations are false.

From these campaign ads it is evident that politicians use misleading and fallacies to make themselves popular or stand out and tarnish their opponents’ competence. This tactics mislead the voters and make them vote not on the basis of qualification and competence but by how best the ads manage to lure them to the candidates side. These campaign strategies are not good as they deny the voters a chance to know their leaders so as to make an informed choice.

Cited work

The Young Turks, “Uh Oh: Romney’s ‘You Didn’t Build That’ Attack Ad…” online video clip. Youtube. Youtube Jul 26, 2012. 8 July 2014 retrived from

PBS NewsHour, “Study: Romney Tax Plan Would Most Benefit Wealthy Americans”online video clip. Youtube. Youtube,Aug 2, 2012. 8 July 2014

AFP News Agency, “Romney promises to ‘do the opposite’ of Obama on the economy” online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, May 2, 2012. 8 July 2014

FortunataMarissa, “Mitt Romney Titanic Is Sinking Untruthful Welfare Ad Is S O S Voters Leaving MEPAC For Obama” online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, Aug 8, 2012. 8 July 2014

spydat3k0, “CNN – Mitt Romney talks Donald trump ‘birther’ controversy – birth certificate distractions” online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, May 29, 2012. 8 July 2014