Posted on 10/08/2008 7:37:17 AM PDT by Victory111
Voters see negative advertising as another form of information. They so distrust politicians that they want to see their opponents tear them down so they can get at the truth. In fact, voter attitudes toward politicians are akin to their opinions of criminal defendants (they could be forgiven for confusing the two). Just as juries want a prosecutor who tears the defendant apart and punches holes in his alibi, so they want a political candidate to run ads exposing his opponent.
(Excerpt) Read more at crossactionnews.com ...
Negative campaigning goes back to the Revolutionary war era....at least that’s as far back as I studied in college.
You can’t finesse an election that you’re not in an overwhelming position to win.
It goes back to the October surprise answer. It’s the only way that some of these spirtless tactics make sense to me.
Check out the Max Boot story written several years ago called “fun in the mud” or something similar. You can find it on the CFR website. it backs up what you learned in school.
However, I suspect that when folks have real, genuine problems — as they do now — that negative campaigns can seem trivial. what folks want are solutions to their problems.
The “public doesn’t like negative campaigning” crap was invented and pushed by the media to try to keep conservatives from doing to democrats what democrats have been doing conservatives since the beginning of the country.
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