Interest Versus Express Advocacy?
The bright-line test doesn't cover forms of communication that are indirect or debatable. Consider this message to voters:
- If you like candidate X, you need to know he did Y.
In a communication like this, there is no mention about voting, however, the plain intention is to cast doubt on voters that supported candidate X.
Campaigning like this is typically called negative campaigning, making attack ads, or making thinly veiled promotional ads on the behalf of the candidate.
Read more about this topic: Issue Advocacy Ads
Famous quotes containing the words interest and/or express:
“A mob cannot be a permanency: everybody’s interest requires that it should not exist, and only justice satisfies all.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Teenagers are like people who express a burning desire to be different by dressing exactly alike.”
—Anonymous. The Last Word, ed. Carolyn Warner, ch. 3 (1992)