The Negs

The LA Times's Mark Babarak takes a look at the shoe that hasn't dropped in the campaign yet: attack ads on television. The candidates don't like to bust these out, because in a multiple-person race negative ads can easily backfire and mainly serve to benefit a third candidate. At some point, though, someone's going to decide he (or, in principle, she, but Clinton almost certainly won't shoot first) needs to go for it.

That kind of thing can transform a race. Most people who follow politics closely have already gotten a little bored with this super-long fight, but most voters still have only very hazy notions about the campaign and the evidence is that attack ads really do make a big difference -- I expect this to especially be a problem for Giuliani. What's more, even relatively small ad-induced changes in the polls would inject dynamism into the competition and bring renewed attention and enthusiasm from the junkies.

Comments

I don't recall - when did Gephart and Dean go negative against each other in 2004? It wasn't this early, right? I have this impression is was like, December, but I could be misremembering. To me, the Gephart-Dean negativity was the most important event of the 2004 Democratic primary campaign... it probably killed both candidacies (although Gephart was probably dead anyway).

Posted by Al | September 23, 2007 9:59 AM

To me, the Gephart-Dean negativity was the most important event of the 2004 Democratic primary campaign... it probably killed both candidacies (although Gephart was probably dead anyway).

What makes you say that? I've heard a lot of explanations about the Dean failure--and I'm sure it was multi-causal--but it would be nice to figure out what actually happened. My own recollection is that the media--perhaps it was only the pundits--became pretty hostile as soon as he stopped being a quirky second-tier candidate.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 23, 2007 10:09 AM

My impression is that Dean got into a nasty war with Gephardt and it made both candidates look bad to the Iowa voters. I'm sure I wasn't following it as closely as others here, but, IIRC, Dean was the first to do a negative ad against another Democrat in Iowa.

Posted by Al | September 23, 2007 10:21 AM

Negative, or, comparative ads, don't need to be slash and burn. In 1996 Clinton was particularly good at airing ads that contained both negative info about Dole (cutting Medicare and such) then pivoting to give positives about himself (protecting Medicare and such). Voters generally didn't view the ads as negative ads at all, that's the kind of trick the challengers need to pull in this race too.

Posted by AJ | September 23, 2007 10:40 AM

I wonder if it might be worthwhile for the DNC to impliment a ban on negative primary campaigning. It seems to clearly help the opposition party in the long run. If it is a good negative campaign, people will remember it if the attacked candidate gets the nomination, meaning the primary smears are doing the GOP's work for them. If the DNC were to impliemnt such a ban, I am not entirely sure it would be enforced. Perhaps mere loud condemnations of a candidate for their negativity from the DNC would make the political cost of going negative too high.

Posted by Shochu John | September 23, 2007 10:41 AM

Anyone watching this week on ABC.
George Will backed up the Gephardt hurting Dean story.
Highlights were:
David Brooks said that Clinton was "serious" about Iraq
Stephanopoulos said that polls show Clinton is strongest Versus GOP candidates in national match ups

Posted by Christopher Colaninno | September 23, 2007 10:42 AM

Doing a little Googling, it looks like:

1. The DLC goes after Gephardt, Dean, and the non-DLC in May of 2003;

2. Gephardt goes after Dean starting in early September of 2003, but the attack ads apparently don't really until January. I can't quite make out who started it, though I'm guessing Dean.

I couldn't tell you which was the most important event. I tend to think the DLC is excellent at winning the media wars, and less good at winning the retail politics wars. Gawd knows which was more important.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 23, 2007 11:12 AM

David Brooks said that Clinton was "serious" about Iraq
Stephanopoulos said that polls show Clinton is strongest Versus GOP candidates in national match ups

Yeah, I think this is another case of the DLC winning the media war.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 23, 2007 11:16 AM

Stephanopoulos said that polls show Clinton is strongest Versus GOP candidates in national match ups

Which is BS, of course; in recent polling, Edwards has the edge in the crosstabs, while Hillary loses to Rudy. That's very rough numbers, though. (The interesting question: how would those two run a campaign in which New York is potentially competitive, but actively campaigning for New York voters might affect the rest of the map?)

On topic, it's hard to step back from television once you commit, because pulling ads or dropping ads is taken to be a sign of weakness or diminishing funds. Still, I'm sure the network affiliates and cable-cos are rubbing their hands in glee at the extension of their biennial rake of campaign contributions.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | September 23, 2007 11:50 AM

Does George use a disclaimer before talking about Hillary? Does he remind viewers that he used to work for the Big Dog?

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | September 23, 2007 12:32 PM

Rudy: He fired William Bratton and hired Bernie Kerik!

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 23, 2007 2:39 PM

I've already started with my negative ads. Here's one for Ruuuuudy:

youtube.com/watch?v=ElAvo8EM4uk

And for the Huckster:

youtube.com/watch?v=T5Dp7FaKIJo

Don't expect CNN to ask those questions or for the top tier candidates in either party to run ads like that because of the various fingers pointing back at them.

Posted by TLB | September 23, 2007 4:11 PM