Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 10:59am

Negativity About Negativity

We’re roughly 4,231 months into the 2012 presidential campaign, or so it seems. Even if you live in a very secure red or blue state (like me), you’ve probably already been subjected to an endless barrage of television ads if you live within about 300 miles of a swing state. And if you live in Richmond, the capital of the battleground state of Virginia, some 4,504 ads have already run (this one’s not an exaggeration), and exactly zero of them have been positive. That’s right, 4,504 out of the 4,504 ads run thus far in the market have been attack ads.

Such information usually inspires people to bellyache about negative campaigning. For instance, this past weekend I talked to my relatively apolitical brother, who said that a politician would instantly become a mass favorite by just being the first guy to run a positive campaign detailing what he was going to do, and forgoing the attacks on his opponent. I just smiled, nodded, and kept smoking the cigar he had generously given me.

I find the criticism of negative campaigning to be overwrought for three reasons. First of all, as Jim Geraghty mentions, they are simply more effective than positive ads. As he says, “if positive ads worked, campaigns would use them more frequently.” People like to complain about them, but attack ads do have an impact. I don’t know if we can accurately measure how persuasive they are, but campaigns would stop running them if they had any indication that they were ineffective.

Second, are “positive” ads any more bearable? No thirty second television spot is going to convey a tremendous amount of information. While we might roll our eyes as soon as the ominous music rolls while some low-voiced narrator explains why Mitt Romney likes to torture small animals and wants your grandmother to die in the street, the fluffy “Hi, I’m Joe McGenericcandidate, and I like puppies” ads are somehow even worse. Nine times out of ten, positive ads are nothing more than the candidate or his surrogates spouting generic nonsense that conveys almost no substantive information. Moreover, in a culture where people increasingly watch television shows through their DVRs specifically so that they can skip the commercials, we generally find all ads to be annoying. So who cares whether the tone of the political advertisement is positive or negative – they’re all equally insufferable. At least the negative ads are more likely to be somewhat funny and entertaining.

Finally, any person who bases their vote even partly due to political advertising should be banned from the polling booth. The first thing that should happen when a registered voter appears at the judges table  – after flashing photographic identification – is them being asked if they only decided their vote after watching a thirty second television advertisement. If they answer yes, or if they answer no but it’s clear that they’re lying – and we can get people there who can tell when people are lying to them – then they should be politely escorted out of the building. If after several decades of campaigning you still can’t decide who to vote for, and you finally just wave your arms and say “I guess I’ll vote for the guy who says the other guy wants to murder my children in their sleep,” then you really should have no right to vote. I wouldn’t feel much better about this voter if he instead said “I guess I’ll vote for the guy who promises abortions for some and miniature American flags for everyone else.” Political advertising is geared towards dumb people and the politically ignorant (not a mutually exclusive group, necessarily). I really don’t care if the message being conveyed to them is negative or positive. The fact that any political advertising actually sways the electorate is depressing in its own right.

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Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Thursday, July 26, AD 2012 4:28pm

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Thursday, July 26, AD 2012 4:29pm

Blackadder
Thursday, July 26, AD 2012 5:05pm

any person who bases their vote even partly due to political advertising should be banned from the polling booth.

In that case, maybe we should just ban the ads? 🙂

Jasper
Jasper
Friday, July 27, AD 2012 10:21am

“Finally, any person who bases their vote even partly due to political advertising should be banned from the polling booth.”

Amen! I think everybody short have to take a short quiz before being allowed to vote.

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, July 27, AD 2012 10:30am

I talked about this in a discussion about VP choices, and I’m going to repeat it here: we really need to take the high road more often. We’ve seen in recent years the way that smears degrade the societal bond. It is a politician’s duty to appeal to the best in people.

I suspect that your brother is right that it’d also be good politics.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, July 27, AD 2012 11:17am

I will paraphrase the famous American philosopher, Yogi Berra, “It ain’t negative if it’s true.”

Spambot3049
Spambot3049
Friday, July 27, AD 2012 11:41am

“Finally, any person who bases their vote even partly due to political advertising should be banned from the polling booth.”

I disagree. Some candidates are a bit coy about their views when they do not want life issues to predominate the race. All it takes is a Planned Parenthood-sponsored ad to “out” the pro-life candidate as “dangerous” to women and society as a whole and I know exactly who to vote for.

For a while, I refused to vote for candidates who were not explicitly and proudly pro-life (on the presumption that they would fold under the pressure of the mainstream media), but that seems not be a good indicator of the candidate’s performance in office. So, negative ads still serve a purpose for me anyway.

edmund burk
edmund burk
Friday, July 27, AD 2012 6:36pm

I agree that political ads go for the lowest common denominator, and that goes for the stupid and the ignorant who these ads are geared to. But we must not forget the part played
by the media in shaping public opinion.

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