In politics, negativity can be positive
Talking about the bad as well as the good in campaigns helps voters make choices.
Hillary Clinton's "3 a.m. phone call" ad has been parsed again and again since the March 4 primaries, with most pundits using it to launch their quadrennial protests that campaign ad negativity weakens the very fabric of our democracy by manipulating and misinforming voters. But tirades against negativity reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of elections. Negativity is essential to democratic politics and ultimately yields a more engaged and better-informed public.
The public needs to know the good and the bad about candidates to make an informed judgment. Think about it: Is it really wrong for Clinton to go after Barack Obama on his relative inexperience in national and international politics? Is it out of bounds for Obama to hold Clinton accountable for her early support of the Iraq war? Should John McCain be forbidden from discussing Obama's liberal voting record? Is it unfair for Obama to talk about McCain's lack of interest in economic issues?
Voters need answers to such questions. Whether we like it or not, attack ads and the debate they trigger offer an invaluable way to develop those answers. All candidates bring strengths and weaknesses to the table. How do we learn about the weaknesses without their being discussed and debated? In fact, the real problem is not attack ads but all the hand-wringing by observers over the supposedly pernicious effects of negative campaigning. These misinformed judgments about attack ads, based mostly on impressions and anecdotes rather than fact, yield only more misinformation.
We take issue with three common assumptions about negative advertising: that the rise of television has made presidential campaigns more negative; that there's a deleterious connection between advertising content and citizen engagement; and that an informative debate must be a positive debate.
Often pundits talk about a longing for the "good old days" of elections. But American campaigns have never been positive undertakings filled with high-brow rhetoric. In the 1800s alone, Thomas Jefferson was attacked as the "anti-Christ," Andrew Jackson's wife was called a prostitute, and Abraham Lincoln was described as a "horrid-looking wretch" unfit to lead.
