With the upcoming election, the United States is in full-blown political mania. Advertisements for candidates are seen everywhere. They come from our TVs, our newspapers, our radios and even our fellow Americans. That’s right, people are acting as billboards for candidates like they were bought and paid for.

Whether it is a bumper-sticker on a car, a button stuck to a bag or a sign placed in a front lawn, the message is clear — “I support this candidate.”

This is not a phenomenon unique to politics. Sociologists use the term personal billboards to describe such actions in a number of settings. Wearing an ISU T-shirt, for example, is an example of a personal billboard, as is sporting a yellow wristband in support of the “Livestrong” foundation.

Personal billboards are not an inherently “bad” social construction, but they may not mix very well with politics. Usually, we promote things as an end unto itself. The “Livestrong” bracelets promote cancer awareness, and an ISU T-shirt provides revenue to the university or makes us fit in with others around us. When politics are involved, however, things become a little different.

Politics are not something that we can just have for ourselves. By definition, they involve an interaction with people around us. Since the United States elects officials to represent entire districts, our politicians and politics are a public matter. It may seem at first glance like personal billboards would be great then. They allow for everyone to tell everyone else what they think, and can get us all involved, right?

Unfortunately, no. They only allow everyone to tell everyone else who they support, not what they think of the candidate and certainly not why. Personal billboards are not conducive to actual interactions. They, like TV ads, are a strictly one-way street. They are not even a useful one-way street, since the candidate of choice for another person is useless to any citizen seeking actual information about the elections. If someone wanted to learn more about who they should be voting for, a button labeled “Obama 2012” is not exactly helpful.

The idea behind stickers, buttons and signs is to create blanket media coverage, which means that one group’s image or name will be so often seen, heard and repeated by anyone and everyone the group will benefit from being a household name. In politics, this translates roughly to a candidate seeking to become so well known that people will consider voting for them.

Certainly many traditional media advertisements provide some form of information to the viewer. A television ad may quote some statistic or call the integrity of an opponent’s actions into question. Personal billboards do not do this, though. They only act as a vehicle for a name or an image.

Such a vehicle is not conducive to good political workings. If a brand name facial tissue can get people to buy their product because of good advertising, so be it. That is their goal as a business, and it has a rather limited effect on the nation as a whole. Our political candidates, on the other hand, do not have such a narrow scope of influence. If a political candidate is elected because he or she had better advertising, we all lose out.

Our elected officials are not supposed to be put in place because they utilize better advertising than the other candidates. Once in office, they are expected to represent their constituency and help in the formation and discussion of our laws and public policy. The purpose of a campaign is to let the public see which candidate is the best at doing those things.

Personal billboards simply do not do that. They only make a choice between two candidates seem like the choice between Pepsi and Coke. That is just not the way to decide who participates in the day-to-day governance of our city, state or nation.