The Death of Negative Campaigning?
1 Comments Published by Augur on Saturday, February 23 at 9:02 AM.
Here is an interesting article by David Lightman on why negative attacks didn't work this cycle. The author offers the following reasons:
Point 1, "information overload." This doesn't keep negative attacks from getting through, it just makes them a little harder to make stick with news outlets tiring of reporting a story for more than one or two days. For an attack to stick, it's better to unpack it slowly, and find new talking points spinning the same attack every few days.
Point 2, "higher tolerance for misbehavior." The author's observation is spot on. Two examples: (1) the change in the impact of drugs (Bill had to deny he inhaled, Barack smoking rock didn't really hurt him), and (2) listen to how the pundits are discussing rumors of McCain's infidelity and notice how little talk there was of Rudy's personal life, let alone the often quoted observation that in the GOP primary field the only candidate with only one wife was the Mormon.
Point 3, "Negative campaigning went too far." This was a factor in terms of South Carolina's response to attacks against McCain. I think the voters felt bad that the "black baby" attack on McCain worked. In general, the negative attacks themselves haven't been particularly effective. Hillary's attacks against Obama have appeared childish and petty. One great example is Rezko. She picked on him for working on a case that was loosely connected with Rezko for 5 hours when he was a junior associate. The attacks that really had legs involved the continued relationship between the two in terms of access, fundraising, state $s, and Obama's land deal. The attacks have been too light, or poorly packaged. In several cases the negative attacks didn't go far enough to be effective.
Point 4, "The charges don't fit." This is a sloppy way of saying the message of the attacks was off. Often leveling charges that don't really fit can be very effective, like the swift boating of Kerry. Before that was launched Kerry was the war hero, and Dubya was the draft dodger. The swift boating charge didn't fit. Imagine if, for instance, attacks on McCain would have been based on attacking his perceived strength. If he would have been attacked from the beginning saying he was corrupt rather than being a contrarian. Keating five ads, and oppo research on favors for lobbyists could have devastated him, and they "don't fit" with his image. Part of negative ads is destroying an image.
I would rephrase this last point to say, at least for the Democrats, "These candidates are different." For most of her career when Hillary Clinton is attacked her numbers go up, when she is attacking in self-defense they stay up, but when she launches a petty attack, or attacks in offense her numbers go down. This phenomenon itself is a curiosity in American politics. The best ways to attack Hillary are 1) attacking Bill; 2) provoking her to go over the top making a petty attack; and 3) policy based attacks to make her look radical. Anything that looks like a personal attack on her, anything that looks like a low blow, anything looking the least bit sexist will backfire. Another interesting phenomenon about Hillary is that there are a great deal of people who don't support Hillary on the merits, but start to support her when it looks like she's being unfairly attacked.
Mr. Obama is also hard to lay a glove on because he positions himself above the fray. His trend lines dropped when he started to attack, and his campaign quickly figured that out and knocked it off. Hillary's problem: when you hit someone who wont hit back you look like a bully. Worse yet, Obama says "this is the same politics of deception and personal destruction that American's are tired of" and rallies of 20,000 at a time collectively applaud and nod their heads. The playbook on how to attack Senator Obama is still being written.
- Information overload.
- A higher tolerance for misbehavior.
- Negative campaigning went too far.
- The charges don't fit.
Point 1, "information overload." This doesn't keep negative attacks from getting through, it just makes them a little harder to make stick with news outlets tiring of reporting a story for more than one or two days. For an attack to stick, it's better to unpack it slowly, and find new talking points spinning the same attack every few days.
Point 2, "higher tolerance for misbehavior." The author's observation is spot on. Two examples: (1) the change in the impact of drugs (Bill had to deny he inhaled, Barack smoking rock didn't really hurt him), and (2) listen to how the pundits are discussing rumors of McCain's infidelity and notice how little talk there was of Rudy's personal life, let alone the often quoted observation that in the GOP primary field the only candidate with only one wife was the Mormon.
Point 3, "Negative campaigning went too far." This was a factor in terms of South Carolina's response to attacks against McCain. I think the voters felt bad that the "black baby" attack on McCain worked. In general, the negative attacks themselves haven't been particularly effective. Hillary's attacks against Obama have appeared childish and petty. One great example is Rezko. She picked on him for working on a case that was loosely connected with Rezko for 5 hours when he was a junior associate. The attacks that really had legs involved the continued relationship between the two in terms of access, fundraising, state $s, and Obama's land deal. The attacks have been too light, or poorly packaged. In several cases the negative attacks didn't go far enough to be effective.
Point 4, "The charges don't fit." This is a sloppy way of saying the message of the attacks was off. Often leveling charges that don't really fit can be very effective, like the swift boating of Kerry. Before that was launched Kerry was the war hero, and Dubya was the draft dodger. The swift boating charge didn't fit. Imagine if, for instance, attacks on McCain would have been based on attacking his perceived strength. If he would have been attacked from the beginning saying he was corrupt rather than being a contrarian. Keating five ads, and oppo research on favors for lobbyists could have devastated him, and they "don't fit" with his image. Part of negative ads is destroying an image.
I would rephrase this last point to say, at least for the Democrats, "These candidates are different." For most of her career when Hillary Clinton is attacked her numbers go up, when she is attacking in self-defense they stay up, but when she launches a petty attack, or attacks in offense her numbers go down. This phenomenon itself is a curiosity in American politics. The best ways to attack Hillary are 1) attacking Bill; 2) provoking her to go over the top making a petty attack; and 3) policy based attacks to make her look radical. Anything that looks like a personal attack on her, anything that looks like a low blow, anything looking the least bit sexist will backfire. Another interesting phenomenon about Hillary is that there are a great deal of people who don't support Hillary on the merits, but start to support her when it looks like she's being unfairly attacked.
Mr. Obama is also hard to lay a glove on because he positions himself above the fray. His trend lines dropped when he started to attack, and his campaign quickly figured that out and knocked it off. Hillary's problem: when you hit someone who wont hit back you look like a bully. Worse yet, Obama says "this is the same politics of deception and personal destruction that American's are tired of" and rallies of 20,000 at a time collectively applaud and nod their heads. The playbook on how to attack Senator Obama is still being written.
Labels: 2008, Augur, dirty politics
Interesting. Some people in the comments section noted that the Democrats really didn't have any negative attacks or campaigning this time around. That is true, but the Republicans did and it certainly didn't help Mitt Romney at all.
One thing I did think about was that in 2006, negative ads didn't work either.