Posted on 08/26/2004 11:16:59 AM PDT by Mike Bates
The hand wringing has been dialed up a notch or two.
Deep thinkers condemn negative campaigning. They decry how dirty politics has become. Voters deserve high-minded, positive campaigns, campaigns with "vision," not personal attacks.
John Kerry criticizes George W. Bush for negative campaigning. To do this, he takes a short break from bashing the President for dividing Americans along racial lines, for "licensing a creed of greed," and for presiding over the most arrogant and inept foreign policy in modern history.
For his part, Mr. Bush plays along. On Monday he called for ads attacking Kerry’s record in Vietnam to be stopped. As he’s said before, he wants all the commercials paid for by independent groups stopped.
The immediate cause of this consternation is the new ad being run in three states by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The group says it’ll spend under $80,000 to run the commercial for two days.
This doesn’t make a dent in the expenditures for other so-called 527 organizations, named for a section of the tax code that lets people contribute unlimited amounts for political advertising. The 527s opposed to President Bush have spent more than $60 million to send him back to Texas.
527s are not allowed to "coordinate" (Is that vague enough?) with a candidate. Nor can they explicitly urge voters to vote for or against someone.
So far, liberals are handily winning the battle of the 527s. Conservatives, whose fat cats tend not to be as magnanimous as Leftist activists like George Soros, will probably never catch up, but they are starting to catch on.
Much, if not most, of the 527 money is spent assailing candidates. The reason why is obvious. Despite constant demands for an end to it, negative campaigning works.
It’s easy to see why. Mouthing the usual insipid clichés may be safe, but it won’t energize voters, especially the activists who need red meet to keep them excited and interested.
President Ford tried to play it safe in 1976 when Ronald Reagan challenged him for the Republican nomination. An example is this inspiring insight Ford gave a meeting of the Future Homemakers of American:
"I say with emphasis and conviction that homemaking is good for America. Never be ashamed to say: ‘I am an American homemaker and I am proud of it’ . . . Remember, it still takes a lot of living to make a home."
If that wasn’t enough make you run home and insist the folks vote for Jerry Ford, what was?
Ronald Reagan’s campaign was going nowhere until he began denouncing the proposed giveaway of the Panama Canal to a Marxist dictator. Some condemned that as negative campaigning. It brought out conservative activists. It also brought the California governor to within an eyelash of defeating the incumbent president.
Negative campaigning is good when it highlights differences between candidates. It gives voters information they might otherwise not have and a reason to be for or against someone.
Quashing negative campaigning might initially seem rational, but consider what impact it has on the First Amendment. Americans enjoy a broad right to express themselves, and that includes political speech. The basis for political speech is to shape public policy, and influencing election results is part of that.
Negative campaigning also might encourage scrutiny of otherwise overlooked situations. For years Kerry has told anyone who wouldn’t run away from him about his "seared" memory of being in Cambodia for Christmas of 1968. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth challenged his story. The Kerry campaign, or at least parts of it, has subsequently corrected the record.
Negative campaigning can be patriotic. If a candidate actually has facts showing that his opponent has repeatedly made errors gravely affecting the nation’s security, or has ideas that are profoundly and dangerously wrongheaded, then he owes it to his fellow citizens to put all the evidence on the table. Vaguely claiming he can do a better job is a disservice to the nation.
Some observers say that negative campaigning depresses voter turnout. This is yet another plus since that means elections aren’t as likely to be decided by unenthusiastic voters with little knowledge of the issues or where the candidates stand on them.
Negative campaigning, truthfully pointing out the opponent’s record or position on something, shouldn’t be confused with the iniquitous lying about one’s opponent or highlighting irrelevant facts. Lies will usually be caught, and the price for them paid by the liar.
I hope, unrealistically I know, that President Bush and Senator Kerry cut out this touchy-feely nonsense about the evils of negative campaigning. Let Americans exercise their right to political speech. For the time being, that means an advantage for liberals, but that isn’t an exorbitant charge for free speech.
Call it negative campaigning or mudslinging or smear politics or whatever you wish. It shouldn’t be discouraged.
(Mike Bates' new book, Right Angles and Other Obstinate Truths, is available at Barnesandnoble.com, Booksamillion.com, Amazon.com or iUniverse.com and can be ordered through most bookstores.)
Hear, hear!
I'm in favor of facts....whether they're pretty or ugly.
Its a good thing. "Negative campaigning" is disliked by incumbents since it strips away all that syrupy fakery by which they promote themselves. People see for whole they really are. As an ordeal through fire, it tests the mettle of candidates to see if they can take pressure with grace. And it reveals like nothing else in politics does, the truth worth of someone seeking public office. So let's hear cheers for negative campaigning. God knows we need more, not less of it. Its already made the campaign this year better and told us things about Senator Kerry we didn't know before. And they are things we all need to know before we step into the voting booth to pull the lever. To put it thusly: an informed citizenry is a more responsible citizenry. Our right to vote should be based on knowing all we need to know about the candidates who seek our support on Election Day.
Yes! Very good article.
If Kerry weren't on the ballot, I'd feel free to vote against the President. The "lesser of two evils" is no longer good enough. We need someone who upholds the Constitution.
I love that.
I love negative ads! I would like them to be worse! lets have Bush call Kerry a bald faced lier or a fuzzy headed liberal Bramin. Let him say what the rest of us are thinking! Yes, Kerry can do the same-- Its an American Tradition! Its all fun. Let them go at it with all the creativity and bile they can muster--openly and with as many facts as they can muster. You could get away with a great deal--was Kerry a pinko? Yes, did he give help to the North Viet Namese, Yes! Was Bush a drunk? Yes! Lets clear the air with a good old fashioned bout of name calling.
LOL. I prefer the emply name-calling be kept at a minimum, but as long as it is backed up with facts I am all for it. Too bad the campaign moralizers won't let it happen. Nooooo....it is WRONG to be negative.
let me get this straight....
Bush is not upholding the Constitution because he is stifling free speech by asking both sides to condemn the 527 groups....
but Kerry is not stifling free speech by having his 'band of lawyers' ask the FEC to stop the 527 groups that point out his 'nuanced' version of events????
Well stated. There is nothing morally wrong with negative campaigning if it is rooted in truth.
McCain is just mad that his precious campaign finance reform, for which he annoyed the world for months, has turned out to be absolutely useless.
Here is the straight scoop.....
The Dims are infinitely worse than the GOP on most, if not all, counts. But that does not mean that we are willing to accept crap from the GOP just because they are better than the Dims.
I will support the GOP and work to make it better. When they get in the smokey back rooms and talk about what they are going to do to win elections, I want someone in there to say, "We can go TOO far or the base will abandon us."
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