I like negative ads

[cleveramerican]

I used to have a baseball coach who told me" If you want to play in this league, you've got to be able to hit the curve ball". I never could and my baseball career came to an end.

Thats what negative ads are for me, even ruthless tasteless unfair ones, these are curve balls thrown at the candidate. I like to see if he(she) can hit them. The whole thing, from what the ad says, to who pays for it, to who reacts to it and how, tells us something about both candidates, and about ourselves the voters. Thats what I like about them. Its easy to appear in command when everything is right over the plate, but can you hit the curve ball?

I have a friend, runs a very successful business, in a very competitive field. If you meet him in his office and ask him to size up his competition, He gives you a very accurate and detached assessment of the overall business climate. If you get him in jeans with a beer in his hand, watching the Pats on TV and ask him the same question He'll tell you that bastard is a rotten liar who cheats on the IRS, and his wife. See the difference?


these days too many candidates appear to be packaged, marketed products. A tough ,hard hitting negative ads pierces the wrapper and deflates the marketing like nothing else. The candidate is forced to swing at this curve ball he(she) never saw coming, if he(she) hits it out of the park, I can tell you from experience, it ain't luck, its skill.

[tblue]

1. I think Dems have to go negative, too. Honest but negative. Let 'er rip!

[jacksonian]

2. i agree, "how" is more interesting than "what"

the downside is that negative campaiging devolves into a rhetorical arms race, and can crowd out all other discussion - ie, no other qualifications but the quick research/spin skills get exposed.

[izzie]

3. I do not seem to mind them at all but I still think that one has to

keep to a standard one sets for them self. You just have to stay within your own beliefs even if the other side does not do it as you would. I guess I am saying winning is not always the only way to go if you end up some thing you do not wish to be. I think that is why the USA is in so much trouble around the world. We have not lived up to what we liked to think we were.

[demnan]

4. Andrew Hurst (VA-11th) ran a good negative campaign

against a well funded Republican incumbent (Tom Davis-R). He might not win, but he gave it a good shot. He ran on the issues and on the incumbent's record. There is nothing wrong with being critical of an incumbent and questioning his or her record.

[Toots]

5. How very Republican of you

:shrug: Democrats usually follow the Golden Rule but I guess you don't believe in such foolishness?

[sendero]

8. And that's why..

... Dems keep losing. NEGATIVE ADS WORK, the polling proves it and that's why the Repugs use them.

Fact is the electorate, who CLAIMS to not like these ads are being hypocrites because of the fact that they DO work.

And lastly, a chief complaint about Dems is (I think fairly) that they won't FIGHT. When someone asks you if you'd support the death penalty if someone raped and killed your wife, you don't have to say yes but if you sit there with intellectual detachment you JUST LOST THE RACE.

People are looking for passion and conviction, negative ads demonstrate that, albeit not in the best possible way.

[Toots]

10. I disagree

How many negative ads did Bill Clinton ever use? He always had a positive viewpoint and was always uplifting. He provided hope for the future while demonstrating competence in the present.

[sendero]

11. That was then...

... this is now.

And BTW, when I refer to "negative", I don't mean the lying smears the Republicans use. There is plenty of REAL dirt to use on these folks, and we should be dishing it with abandon.

[cleveramerican]

15. it was how he HANDLED it.....

No politician ever handled relentless negative attacks better than Bill, which for me was proof of his formidable political skill.

[cleveramerican]

17. Have you ever seen a democratic primary?

[FormerDittoHead]

6. The issue isn't negativity, it's CONTENT...

I think the polls showing people not liking "negative ads" are dishonest.

When asked "what do you think of negative ads" people would logically consider a slanderous, specious, negative ad against their party and not want to see that.

But if they were asked, "would you want to see a political ad accurately detailing wrongdoing by your party's opponent?" they would EAGERLY want to see it.

But wouldn't that be a negative ad?

Indeed, unless you actually say GOOD things about your opponent, this "no negative ads meme" would forbid a candidate from practically MENTIONING their opponents in their ads at all.

It's not the negativity of ads that I would object to, rather, it's the quality and honesty of their content. A good example is the Swift Boat campaign whose content was, from what I gathered, entirely made up.

But if Dick Cheney were running '08, I mean, COME ON - no one gonna tell me we should take the "high road" and only say "good things" in our campaign! BS!

[sendero]

12. Exactly..

... its all a semantics game. Telling the hard truth about your opponent isn't "negative" in the sense that some take it, but it sure feels negative to the thrice divorced "family values" candidate :)

[lwcon]

7. IMHO, the exact opposite is true

Not only are negative ads typically dishonest (the term is generally reserved for ads that turn fractional truths into potent smears), they create a climate of gotcha that encourages candidates to be glib -- lest they say something that could be twisted -- and they encourage incumbents to vote against their conscience.

Along with the fair is foul, foul is fair news media, it's exactly what turns candidates into "packaged, marketed products."

No doubt the fear of the inevitable "doesn't support our troops" / "soft on terror" smears drove many Dem votes for the initial Iraq War resolution and the pro-torture bill. Not to excuse those votes, but to explain them.

The negative-ad culture is an ill wind. It's a fact of modern political life, but it's about the last goddamn thing I'd praise.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[zippy890]

9. like this one?

http://www.healeycommittee.com/video-ad_garage.html

The Washington Post has called Kerry Healey's campaign "as vicious as we've seen this cycle,"

'her ads have been ineffective and most of it is either patently false or distorted beyond all recognition.'

oh yeah- Deval Patrick went up significantly in the polls after the airing of these ads, they had the opposite desired effect.

your analogy is flawed- these 'curve ball' negative ads in politics are designed to hit the opponent below the belt, with lies and distortions. If thats the kind of politics you want you got it with our current government.

[cleveramerican]

16. Deval went up in the polls precisely because of....

how well he handled those ads, thus displaying for the voters of Massachusetts the high level of political skill he posses'. Those ruthless unfair, slightly racist ads showed voters a lot about both sides which was my point

[abluelady]

13. As a Mom....

I tried to teach my children that the means don't justify the end and how you play the game is more important than winning. I don't know much about baseball but I think curve balls are allowed. Wasn't there something called a spit ball that wasn't? I think negative ads are spit balls not curve balls.

[cleveramerican]

14. walked around for a day thinking about it

and what I was clumsily trying to say is this;

"The act of deftly handling vicious negative ads aimed at you is the highest form of political skill a candidate can display"


maybe one in ten does it with style and grace, and that fact is not lost on me.