Political Attacks

I've blogged recently about how people versus how political professionals respond to negative advertising and attacks. A NYTimes poll out today suggests a backlash against the McCain campaign. We see this sometimes in negative political ads, but more often when the ads come from within-party competition, not from outside the part.

In part the results reflect the overall lead by Obama, so it's not surprising that more people would see the McCain approach in a negative light. Six of ten don't like the negative attacks, but only 53 percent say they'll vote for Obama. That's enough of a difference to suggest at least some undecided voters are unhappy with the McCain camp's recent approach.

All that aside, McCain is getting pushed by some Republicans to take it to Obama tonight in the debate, to bring up Ayers and Wright and so on. It's tough. The economy is in the tank right now, otherwise this might work, but people are so worried about jobs and retirement that the usual tactics don't seem to work this campaign. Bad timing, I guess. We'll probably see a conflicted McCain tonight, drawn to attack which is against his nature, but forced by reality to do something to shake up his chances as polls trend away from him.

Political Smears and Learning

Both the McCain and Obama camps have gone negative. It must be October.

There's an old line about negative advertising -- people hate it, but it works. Obama "palled around" with domestic terrorists, or so says Sarah Palin. McCain palled around with the guy behind the huge savings and loan scandal many years ago, or so say recent ads. Tonight is yet another debate, and everyone wonders if the McCain and Obama's heels will go on and their gloves come off.

Political smears are old school presidential politics. They have a pedigree stretching back to some of the earliest presidential campaigns. Nothing new, nothing surprising, and we know they can sometimes influence voters.

But do they affect learning?

Yeah, kinda. How's that for a PhDweebish answer? Negative information grabs the attention, breaks through the indifference of some voters, energizes others, and generally can lead to some political learning. Advertising has become a key factor in what people know about a campaign, in part because the ads invade their entertainment programming and are harder to escape than straight news stories.

So tonight, if the heels are on and the gloves are off, we might not only see great political theater, we may have some people learn more than from a wonky policy discussion.

Going Negative Column

I summed up some of my earlier thoughts about negative ads and changing media habits in this newspaper column, published earlier this week by the Athens Banner-Herald.

More on Negative Ads

See this press release on research about negative ads and how, according to Goldstein in his book, they actually help democracy by informing the public.

I kinda agree, in part because advertising shows up in entertainment fare, reaching an audience largely tuned out of news, and the negative nature is more memorable than soft fuzzy friendly ads.

Some scholars argue that advertising may be the only way to reach large segments of a disconnected, indifferent public. A negative ad on such quality programming as Dancing with the Stars, for example, may go a long way.

Of course this raises the question of whether anyone who watches Dancing with the Stars (or American Idol) should be allowed to vote.