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Negative ads

zenith-nadir

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Z
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Feb 3, 2004
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I find negative ads turn me off. I don't care who it is, Bush or Kerry. I lose faith in a party who needs to use negativity to sell themselves as the better party. If that is all they have to offer is negativity and mudslinging then what good are they. I would be more inclined to vote for a party who is above all that....but alas, there is no party above that. ;) Anyone else feel this way?


(On a side note... I would gladly vote Republican just to shut Ted Kennedy the 'F' up)
 
No, because the Democratic ads are dirty and dishonest. The Republican ads are just good ol' rough 'n' tumble politics.

That's what my neocon handlers told me to say...
 
I think too much is made of "negative ads". Not all negative ads are alike.

When the Republicans say, "Jonh Kerry voted against every weapons system." that's a negative ad. However, it happens to be policy based and more or less true. When the Kerry camp says, "George Bush has created a mess in Iraq." That's a negative statement, but it's a legitimate issue that is part of the substance of the campaign.

What turns me off is not negativity, but character assassination. I hate hearing, "George Bush didn't fulfill his national guard duties." That is a personal attack not relevant to this campaign. It turns me off, and it is the reason I won't vote for Kerry. If he wants the job badly enough that he resorts to slander, I don't want to give it to him.

In other words, I don't mind negativity when it is more or less true and related to a legitimate issue, but mudslinging, personal attacks, and digging into candidates personal lives are really bad.


P.S. Every campaign season in recent memory, I hear candidates posting ads that say, "My opponent is dirty, no good, low down, moronic jerk. But what really makes me mad is that he uses negative advertising!"
 
Hmmm, IMHO the reason they are used (more effectively by the GOP and cohorts) is that they work.

I have some older friends who are hard-core Republicans. We rarely talk politics even though I'm intensely curious to understand their position and reasoning. So far it seems to be an intense hatred (yes hatred is a strong word) of John Kerry. We I asked about them some of GWB obvious goof ups (WMD, going it alone), I get blank stares. One of them was reading a new right-wing hack job book (I forget the title), that she recommend I read. I glanced through it and after it touted GWB 5 years of "service" versus Kerry's 1 or 2 years, I had to put it down.

Charlie (hate is the message, but love is the drug) Monoxide
 
Meadmaker said:
...What turns me off is not negativity, but character assassination. I hate hearing, "George Bush didn't fulfill his national guard duties." That is a personal attack not relevant to this campaign. It turns me off, and it is the reason I won't vote for Kerry...
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Which ad was that? Or was it a speech? A google search of various versions of that phrase yields no quotes that come from Kerry. Just curious.
 
Vorticity said:
Which ad was that? Or was it a speech? A google search of various versions of that phrase yields no quotes that come from Kerry. Just curious.
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John Kerry has, however, said that Bush served honorably.

Remember: decision first, reasons later.
 
That is a personal attack not relevant to this campaign. It turns me off, and it is the reason I won't vote for Kerry.
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By that logic, you shouldn't be voting for Bush either.
 
Meadmaker said:
It turns me off, and it is the reason I won't vote for Kerry. If he wants the job badly enough that he resorts to slander, I don't want to give it to him.
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So who's it gonna be, Meadmaker? Nader or Badnarik? And I'd be interested in hearing your reasons, beyond, "he doesn't slander his opponents."
 
Vorticity said:
Which ad was that? Or was it a speech? A google search of various versions of that phrase yields no quotes that come from Kerry. Just curious.
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The DNC's "Fortunate Son" campaign. Yes I know that the DNC is not the Kerry campaign. I also know that one call from Kerry would stop it.

If the election were held today, it would be Badnarak. I don't agree with the large L Libertarians, but their hearts are in the right place. I don't mind throwing a symbolic vote in their direction. If they had a prayer of winning, I would have to think about it.

After I wrote the original above, I decided to check the DNC web site. I couldn't find any reference to "Fortunate Son". Good. There's another month to go before the election. Maybe I'll change my mind.
 
If they had stuck with someone like Ron Paul, they might have a prayer of making a respectable showing.
 
Correction: I didn't see the video, but a search of the DNC site had several recent references to "Fortunate Son" and this, from the front page:

"Today, the Los Angeles Times investigates President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 and 1973 and raises more troubling and unanswered questions about Bush’s tenure in the Guard. "

So, as long as they keep this up, I won't even consider their candidate.
 
Meadmaker said:
Correction: I didn't see the video, but a search of the DNC site had several recent references to "Fortunate Son" and this, from the front page:

"Today, the Los Angeles Times investigates President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 and 1973 and raises more troubling and unanswered questions about Bush’s tenure in the Guard. "

So, as long as they keep this up, I won't even consider their candidate.
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Uh-Oh. Better not look at the front page of the RNC right now:
http://www.rnc.org/
 
aerocontrols said:
Negative adds are really just subtractions.
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What we really get are complex ads, with a real part and an imaginary part.
 
My problem with negative ads is that they aren't negative enough. They're boring.

"John Kerry isn't a strong leader." --oooh! Shocking. This would be much more interesting:

"John Kerry once stabbed a pregnant woman in the forehead with a barbeque fork, and laughed at her pain. Just like he'll laugh at your pain, America. He's planning to cheat on his wife with your sister, and he dares you to stop him."

"In his term as president, George Bush was personally responsible for the rise of poisonous spider bites by a trillion percent from 1999, and has made absolutely no commitment to defending America against the threat of asteroid bombardment. Is this leadership? A vote for Bush is a vote for winding up a spider-bitten corpse at the bottom of a smoking crater."

But then, entertainment is pretty much all I expect from political leadership these days. And they can't even deliver on that.
 
TragicMonkey said:
"In his term as president, George Bush was personally responsible for the rise of poisonous spider bites by a trillion percent from 1999, and has made absolutely no commitment to defending America against the threat of asteroid bombardment. Is this leadership? A vote for Bush is a vote for winding up a spider-bitten corpse at the bottom of a smoking crater."
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That's funny.
 
Brown said:
What we really get are complex ads, with a real part and an imaginary part.
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:golf: good one!!!!

What amazes me the most is how much we Americans hate negative campaigning... you ask any one, and they'll go on a rant about it...

And yet they work so well that both sides find themselves forced to do it... I think we're the hypocrites...

:i:

or... perhaps there's a psycho/sociological dynamic going on that we're all trapped by... whoever works it out so we can at last abandon farces like this, while still retaining democracy, deserves a Nobel prize.
 
Negative campaigning does not always work.

In Iowa about six years ago, there was a heated race for governor. In the last few weeks of the campaign, one of the candidates, who held a significant lead in the polls, started running negative ads, saying his opponent was in favor of (gasp!) nude dancing in the state.

The voters held this ad against the candidate who ran it. He lost his lead, and lost the race for the governor's office.
 
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