In the last year’s mayoral election in Town T, candidate Miller led candidate Keating by a substantial margin in the polls leading up to the election. At the last minute, candidate Keating launched a widely viewed series of television advertisements that focused on preserving the natural environment of Town T, a topic neglected by candidate Miller. Subsequently, candidate Keating won the election by a narrow margin. This year, if candidate Miller hopes to win the upcoming mayoral election, he must increase his coverage of the topic of preserving the natural environment of Town T.

The author claims that since Keaton won the electing last year by advertising on preserving the natural environment, Miller should also increase his coverage on the topic if he hopes to win. Though this argument looks convincing, on a deeper scrutiny the conclusion seems to have relied on unwarranted assumptions like the advertisements coverage in the media is the reason for Keating winning the election, and the milieu of last year is relevant for the current year too. So, the argument is unconvincing without the facts corroborating the above assumptions.
First, the argument readily assumes that the TV advertisements are the reason for Keating winning the election. The argument stated that the advertisements are widely viewed, but it remained silent on the composition of the viewers. It is possible that these advertisements are viewed by children who are not eligible to cast a vote or by older citizen who spend most of their time watching TV but feeble to cast a vote. Even if the advertisements are widely viewed, do these advertisements are convincing enough to move the voter body to turn their votes to Keating. Without convincing answers to these, the arguments remains more of a wishful thinking and open to debate.
The second major problem is that the author believes that there is no change in peoples’ perceptions to saving the nature did not change from last year to this year. For example, last year because of recession a lot of citizens in Town X lost a livelihood and they wish to vote for a candidate who can generate more jobs in the market. In addition, the TV advertisements could have gone obsolete and now people rely on mobiles and internet to get news and opinions about a candidate in election.
Third, the argument used poll results to justify the reason for Keating’s win. It could have been more appealing by mentioning that the poll is representative and unbiased and that the voters in the actual election participated in the poll.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons. In order to access the merits of a certain situation, it is cardinal to consider all the relevant facts before arriving at a judgement. In this case, without knowing the representatives of the poll, the fact attributing the advertisements to Keating’s win and people perceptions, urging Miller to implement the strategy used by Keating last year could backfire.