Note: This isn’t meant to be a political debate. I’m leaving off names and parties intentionally.
I’ve seen alot the last few days on negative ads being released by one of our candidates for President. My question is what is considered negative? Is pointing out what you think is the opposition’s poor record to be considered negative? And if you think a particular proposal by a candidate will produce negative results and you point them out in an ad, why is that negative? To me it’s just campaigning. People don’t vote FOR somebody, they vote AGAINST somebody.
I don’t want to hear that a particular ad may be untrue. that is all subjective and a matter of interpretation.
There seems to be a lot of selective memory and/or whitewashing of history with respect to negative arguments. Attacking one’s opponent in political campaigns is nearly as old as the union. The use of attack ads can be a valid adversarial tactic.
That being said, attack ads which lie or grossly mislead (quotes far out of context, 20 year old quotes applied to current issues, etc.) do actually annoy me, and have at times caused me to change my vote. This can also apply to positive ads as well; perhaps it’s a side issue, but I bring it up to disagree with Oblong on whether the truth of ads matters.
In one case, a candidate I was tentatively going to vote for attacked his incumbent opponent on an issue I strongly agreed with. (It was an attack on a science funding vote based on the fact that some part of the money was spent to study methane emissions from cattle as a greenhouse gas) That did change my vote against the attack ad running candidate…
The main difference between then and now is that it’s become popular to whine about attack ads and pretend that they’re a new trend. Somehow, it’s now considered noble to ignore your opponent in your advertising campaign. This makes absolutely no sense to me.
some would consider negative campaigning to be anything that points out the failings of other candidates and neglects to mention one’s own worthiness. I haven’t heard that people are complaining that it’s new, just that it oughtn’t be done anymore.
Lots of people are actually sick of being forced to vote against somebody due to lack of choice or otherwise, rather than vote for someone else. The way I see this method, the voter ends up feeling, “Well, we kept that guy out of office, but the one we voted in, what’s she going to do for us?” as if the candidate-elect will only be there as a caretaker.
Although I feel attacking another person’s position should be in debates, where it can be discussed more fairly (and I’m not talking panelled debates until the panelists decide to ask these questions), I think if one wants to mention the other candidates, it’s better to make commercials that compare & contrast the candidates’ records than those that simply make accusations.
Since all this is ideal, and negative ads work for now, the real issue comes down to perception, since some ads will be perceived as negative and others won’t. One candidate (let’s call him Beorge Bubbleyew Gush) rejected an ad that he felt was too negative, while allowing another that’s been decried by the other side as being negative. (Of course, when you’ve got the actual inventor of the remote control in your commercial, wouldn’t you want to air it, too?)
