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:
“There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“The method of painting is the natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.... I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end.”
—Jackson Pollock (19121956)