they are everywhere 24/7 fighting for your vote. not the candidates, but the political ads. today we discuss how they're made and how they affect your vote. zero in the bank. many in our area are not saving for the future. today we discuss a plan to help you tuck away some of your hard-earned cash. plus, ending the digital divide. even if you're struggling, you don't have to go without internet access. a popular program for low-income families is now expanded. good morning. i'm george spencer for nbc 10

iis at issue. today we talk about political ads. love them or hate them, you do watch them, and sometimes change your vote because of them. >> what can we say? our dad is a little different. >> a lot different. >> i'm tom wolf and i'll be a different kind of governor. >> president nixon doesn't believe we should play games with our national security. he believes in a strong america, to negotiate for peace from strength. >> my dad is pretty busy these days. but he still finds time to take me to school. >> have a good day. be good. >> it's morning again in america. and under the leadership of president reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. >> bush and dukakis on crime. bush supports the death penalty. dukakis not only opposes the

death penalty, he allowed criminals to have weekend passes from prison. one was willie horton, put in prison for stabbing a boy 18 times. joining me now is neal oxman. he is head of a campaign group that has performed tv spots for more than 700 races around the country. oxman's clients have included michael nutter and al gore. thank you for joining us. how are you? >> doing well, thank you. >> this is the home stretch for the candidates now, and i think a lot of people are wondering, can the political ads still have an impact at this point? >> absolutely. pennsylvania happens to be at the epicenter of the presidential campaign this year. four years ago, we hadded alm ao presidential advertising because the romney and obama campaigns considered pennsylvania as a safe state. these ads will make a big

difference over the next five yeex a weeks and couple days. >> one thing that's interesting is the way these ads need to speak to voters at the moment of time we're in right now. 'hea i've heard you say, define yourself, define your opponent and then define the stakes. in broad terms, as you're thi g thinking about defining the stakes, what comes to mind as you're overriwriting these ads? >> there's nothing overriding. it's not an economy year. it's where the two candidates, their unfavorables are higher than the favorables. they're beating each other over the head with 2x4s. the clinton campaign is trying to make trump unfit to be president, and they're aiming their campaign at young people and suburban women. so the ads that you see, the ads where the girls are looking in

the mirror, and you hear trump saying insane things over them and criticizing women, and then a hillary ad where she's talking about how she's been for children her whole life in little snippets of her from the time she was in college until now, you can see there is a clear audience those ads are named at. >> one of the most common criticisms we hear almost every election cycle is perspective. >> people have been saying that for 30 years. >> are negative ads more effective? >> no, no, they're -- i mean, the wolf ad you showed before was a single reason, literally the single reason that tom wolf went from 5% of the vote and no one knew him in the state. one 60-second positive ad pushed him higher. michael nutter spent the least amount of money and it was a

positive ad. >> a positive ad that humanizes the candidate? >> it's hard to put an adjective next to what it is. you can throw a thousand adjectives on them, and negative ads work as well. >> one thing that certainly any of the viewers in our market have been seeing a lot of are advertisements in the pennsylvania senate race. i'm wondering what has stood out to you as an ad guy. what has been working in that race and what has maybe not been working? >> the interesting thing about the evolution of this cycle's ads is that instead of a lot of -- especially the presidential campaign. instead of a lot of voiceovers, what the clinton campaign is doing is they're taking the sound clips of their opponents and letting them run and commenting that way on them. and i think the most effective ads that the mcginnie people are

doing are against toomey, where he's talking about he's for decriminalizing doctors performing abortions, that he is for the nra. because of the new cycle and everything you say as a candidate gets recorded by somebody, that's kind of the evolution we've seen in this cycle. >> for lyndon johnson, i believe, aired decades ago but still point to it, this many years later, as an example. >> it's clearly the most fame under the circumstanc -- famous political ad ever made. it ran only once during a football game. that's all johnson had to do. >> we'll take a brief listen to it. >> 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. >> neal, the image of that

little girl and then the explosion, what is it about this that makes it so effective pointed to, as an example, of excellence? >> johnson was running against barry goldwater who at that time was portrayed as an extreme conservative. today the tea party would run against him, that's how kind of liberal conservative he was. but it was a metaphor that the johnson campaign used to say -- without saying goldwater's name, that he was so extreme that he used a nuclear weapon. america understood it and it only had to play once, and it is literally the most famous political ad ever made. >> yet i've got to imagine, the years that you've been doing this, the landscape has changed. one thing you and i were speaking about is the entrance of superpacs into the advertising space. so many of the ads people are seeing in this election cycle

have been produced by outside groups, not by one of the campaigns. how has that changed political advertising? >> what it does is it allows the campaigns to do mostly positive ads with the understanding that the superpacs will do all the negative ads. so the campaigns can say, we're only doing positive ads knowing the superpacs are taking care of the dirty work. that's one of them. the second thing it's done is clearly up the amount of money, because where there are limits in federal campaigns of what you can give to a candidate, little more than $2500, you can give millions to superpacs. people have, and it's made the proliferation of television advertising in campaigns astronomical. >> and the numbers spent in pennsylvania alone have been astronomic astronomical. only a matter of the weeks left in this particular election cycle. as you look forward with the experience you have, what are we

going to see as this election cycle closes out? will there be still new ads? can the volume go up any more? >> i don't know if the volume can go up, because if you're a viewer and you watch channel 10 in philadelphia from 5:00 in the morning news until jimmy fallon goes off the air at 12:30 at night, at almost every local break you'll see a political ad. i think from the clinton campaign you'll see more of the same, which is trump will continue to say something that they will just put on the air and parrot that way. >> neil oxman, so much to think about. we thank you for your time and we appreciate it. >> thanks, george. next on nbc 10 @issue, groups that don't have a retirement plan through their

employer. when i was one year old, i was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer on my spinal chord. but i spent my whole life fighting back. so you can imagine what i thought when i saw donald trump say... "i don't know what i said, ah, i don't remember!" "that reporter he is talking about suffers from a chronic condition that impairs movement of his arms." i don't want a president who makes fun of me. i want a president who inspires me, and that's not donald trump. priorities usa action is responsible for the content of this advertising.

well, it sounds simple enough, putting mona side now is the key to saving your future, allowing you to retire with money in the bank. but according to the aarp, about 55 million private sector employees in the united states have noack asse access to retir savings plans at work. it affects younger workers, minorities, low to moderate income makers and small business employees. >> this man is working to whip up a bill that would provide a private retirement savings plan for workers in the state who do not have one. thank you for being here. the plan is still in the early stages, but how are you thinking it would work? >> several states have these plans including illinois, maryland and new jersey. we would allow employees in

private companies to save through the state with automatic payroll deduction, pre-tax, for at little as $25 per month. >> so the pre-tax element sounds like it's a critical piece of this, because i think there might be some critics who would say, why does the state need to get involved? people could go to their local bank branch and just ask for a savings account. how do you respond to that? >> pre-tax is obviously better than with tax. but in addition, management by the state will have professional management, which will make the investment choices hopefully much more improved, and secondly, because we'll be saving for the workers across the entire state, the fees on the investments should be lower, therefore, protecting more of the investment. >> so if i'm an employer out there, small business, let's say someone who is listening to this, what would you say about our businesse-- are businesses,

employers going to be required to participate to contribute? >> employers will not be made to participate to contribute, however, all employees will be enrolled automatically and they will be able to opt out if they don't want to participate. but employer participation will be negligible. >> i know this begins with a personal story. how did this originate? was there one story or one situation that you came across in your work that prompted you to say, we as a state in pennsylvania have to do a better job with this? >> i met with the aaa, an agent organization in montgomery county. what they shared with me was story after story of individuals who turned 85 to 87 years old and run out of money. but they had worked all their lives. and i could see -- obviously, there is more pennsylvanians going to reach that point. >> and certainly, as people are

living longer, it becomes more of an issue. as we look forward, i know the session in harrisburg has just restarted again. where does this bill stand? >> so senator john eickelberger who is a republican for blair county and i have joined together to sponsor legislation. we are seeking more support from legislatures as well as from citizens. i'm glad this is a bipartisan effort. i think that makes the chance for success much higher. >> senator art hayward, we certainly appreciate your time and we'll be tracking this legislation as it moves through harrisburg in the coming legislation. meanwhile, city controller alan buckowitz says citizens are looking for retirement solutions for their employees. they are running a retirement symposium on october 19 at houston hall in pennsylvania.

the public is welcome but must rsvp on line or by calling the controller's office. next on nbc 10 @issue, a program that helps local families get on line is now expanding. stay with us to learn if you could be eligible for low-cost home internet service.

bridging the digital device through affordable internet, low-cost computers, free classes and on-line support. that's what the internet essentials class is set up to do. olympic gold medallist jackie joyn joyner kersey sat down to talk about how that program is

opening up for more people in the area. >> sometimes we take advantage of the fact that everyone has internet. being a part of this program, i can say just going back home, talking to people in my community, it brought one young man to tears that he wasn't able to do his homework. he was failing. he can't do it on a cell phone. to have the internet, to have it at the center, the difference that it's make to go ing to all kids to really do their homework, be productive and feel good about themselves. >> david, you and i were talking about this earlier. it's sort of a cruel irony about who has it and who doesn't. >> it's a cruel irony because the internet is a form of technology that has the potential of lowering the playing field in terms of access to education, vocational care and news information and entertainment. because of this thing called the digital divide where you've got

70, 80% of low income families, mostly in urban areas, who don't have the internet at home versus 90% plus of families who tend to live in higher income neighborhoods or communities who do have the internet, the internet is actually accelerating differences, exacerbating differences, allowing the haves to move forward faster and the have-nots to be held even further behind. it's that cruel irony that led us to create this program and to engage partners like jackie joyner-kersee who come to this with legitimate experience having worked on this in st. louis. >> i wonder if you have kids coming forward saying they don't have the internet and having heard about these opportunities that they are speaking up about it. >> some have access in their

community centers, but some are embarrassed. but when they see they're not alone, it opens up that dialogue and i think that's what we've been able to do when you talk about that digital device, but then also taking it into what we call a safe place and sometimes community centers, outreach places, where they feel like it's a level playing field. >> it's interesting. the kids get why the internet is important. that demographic group understands it, but most of these kids are not the decision makers in their homes as to purchasing home internet access, and, you know, this big barrier to adoption is digital literacy, digital relevance gap where the parents may not understand how important the internet is, what the value of the internet is to their household. so it's making the connection not only with the kids, but figuring out the way to make the connection with the parents for

them to understand why this is important. you know, we've talked before about the success of this program. we've signed up 3 million low-income americans in five years. about 85,000 in the city of philadelphia, which is pretty amazing. we had a slow start in philadelphia, but it's gained momentum, and i'm convinced one of the reasons it gains momentum is because as you get home internet connections in these communities, you start having the families talking about it among themselves. this year the big announcement is the extension of eligibility for the program beyond families with school-age children to all citizens receiving public housing assistance. so if you live in public housing, if you have a section 8 certificate, if you're getting public housing support, you'll now be eligible for this program as long as comcast serves your public housing development. so in philadelphia, that's another 35,000 households who

are instantaneously eligible for this program regardless of whether they have kids, so there are a lot of veterans living in public housing and low-income seniors. this becomes an opportunity to extend the benefits of this program to a broader population. >> that's how you bridge that gap. and you talk about that digital device. you're not talking about just children, but families and anybody receiving public housing assistance, you're able to give them access. >> david, in terms of what comcast is doing, you guys are putting more resources into this program. >> we're going to add $100,000 in funding to 10 non-profits in philadelphia who are engaged in illiteracy, and we also announced last week a new partnership with the y which we kicked off in philadelphia, and we're making grants to a number of ys around the country to

support ymca efforts around illiteracy in the community. it's a source of great pride for the country and for me that we've been able to make such a difference on a consistent basis in every community where our company is located. 90 states and 39 businesses. it's something we stand for and continue to be happy about. >> and continue to invest in. >> we all want a level playing field and usually the underserved sometimes go unnoticed. but they are a growing population, and it's very important to continue to reach out to the outreach, the non-profits. because people feel sometimes they're a safe place, but then also people trust. and you can continue to get that word out and continue to reach and galvanize people, and then they can be the ones who are spreading the word, bringing awareness, taking it back home. then also mom, dad, grandma, significant others are knocking

on those doors trying to figure out how can i get this if this is in my area? >> thank you so much for speaking with us. >> thank you for having us on. >> you can apply on line at internetessentials.com or over the phone by calling 1-855-8-internet. that's 1-855-846-8376. for more information, tap on the nbc 10 app. comcast is the parent company of nbc 10. we'll be right back.

i think my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament. i'd like to punch him in the face, i'll tell you. i would bomb the [bleep] out of 'em. i could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldn't lose any voters, okay? and you can tell them >> i could stand in the middle and i could shoot voters, okay? of this advertising.

if you want to vote in november's election and you're not registered, time is running out. the deadline in pennsylvania is october 11. it's october 15th in delaware, and in new jersey you must register by october 18th. that is it for this edition of "nbc 10 @issue."

thanks for joining us. have a great sunday.

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