The truth in political advertising: 'You're allowed to lie'

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/ [login to see] /the-truth-in-political-advertising-youre-allowed-to-lie
Political candidates can say some outrageous things.

Sometimes, those things are even lies, like in an ad from Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

Lake, a Republican former TV anchor who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, got lots of attention with an introductory ad in which she invoked the lie that the 2020 election was rigged (and that the news media won't cover the rigging).

"If you're watching this ad right now, it means you're in the middle of watching a fake news program," Lake said in the ad. "You know how to know it's fake? Because they won't even cover the biggest story out there: the rigged election of 2020. And rigged elections have consequences."

The Lake campaign spent only about $5,000 on the ad buy on local broadcast stations in Phoenix, Tucson and Yuma, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. The spot aired 13 times locally, compared with 20 times on national cable. Ads, especially introductory ones, are intended to get attention, and this one appears to have gotten a good bang for the campaign's buck.