Voters Are To Blame For Gutter Politics

I just came across this Detroit News editorial from Thursday, Oct 4 –

Editorial Update: Voters tired of gutter tactics

The Epic-MRA survey found that half of the voters were so turned off by Monday’s first gubernatorial debate, with its cheap shots, distortions and insinuations, that they thought neither Dick DeVos nor Gov. Jennifer Granholm could be declared the winner.

Asked about negative campaign ads, those surveyed said both camps are equally distasteful, and they aren’t being swayed by the attacks.

Yes that’s what voters say when asked “do you like negative campaigning?” Of course people deny it. No one wants to admit it, and some people actually believe that they don’t like it. But in the end, negative campaigning almost always works.

It’s like asking, “do you look at accidents on the highway?” No one will say “yes.”

Intellectually, we know that we should not like negative campaigns. But our emotions are a different matter.

Voters get pelted with messages that condition them to react a particular way. Political junkies like me get angry when we see it done to our candidates. We already oppose the other guy, based on his position on the issues. But when he beats up on our candidate, we get angry. Then we start hating him.

Undecided voters might lean one way or another, but they want more information. Then they get hit with negative ads, and one of two things happen; they either vote against whatever was attacked, or they just don’t vote at all.

There’s good reason to think that negative advertising turns people off; in our last presidential election, only about half of eligible voters actually showed up to the polls.

(by the way, all of you undecided voters in 2004 who were on tv after the debates, shrugging your shoulders and saying “if you want my vote, you have to convince me” … you suck. you’re too stupid to vote. pick up a book and learn what the world is about)

On the other hand, you can go all the way back to Lee Atwater’s Willy Horton ads to see the benefits of negative campaigns. The candidate who runs the best negative campaign wins. Period.

… what negative advertising does is get your supporters committed and excited. Those who are indifferent are so turned off that they are less likely to vote, as are people who are for the other candidate–so not only does it help you, but it depresses turnout. The ideal, rational goal is to turn out your most committed supporters and make sure nobody else turns out.

The negative message doesn’t have to be true, as Betsy DeVos showed us when she attacked Mike Powers with a district wide mailing out here in Shiawassee, on the basis that he would raise taxes. In reality, it was Dick Ball who said he would raise taxes. Mike Powers had always opposed them. Both were on record with their positions. (Of course, the Argus Press (Drew Acre, in particular) did mis-report their positions on the issues, which makes you wonder …)

The only requirement for a negative attack is that it elicit an emotional response. And the reality is, voters reward negative campaigns. If they really wanted a clean campaign, Micheal Dukakis would have been elected President in 1988.

We’ve tried candidate driven ‘clean campaigns’. In 2004, Powers and Ball both agreed to a positive campaign, and both candidates stuck to it. But Ball didn’t control the MI GOP. In stepped Betsy, who smeared Powers all over the district. And Ball had complete deniability. He remained “the nice candidate”.

We could create laws to prohibit negative campaigns, but who would enforce them? The party that controls the courts? How much would it cost the state (or the nation) to drag those laws through the legal system, when they were challenged? And how long before they were struck down as unconstitutional? By then, the offending candidate would most likely have been elected.

I can’t say I would like a law to prohibit political speech anyway.

Sorry voters. You’re the ones who voted against Willie Horton. You’re the ones who think war heroes are traitors. You’re the ones who refuse to educate yourselves. You’re the ones who made negative campaigns so rewarding. So suck it up, because the Lee Atwaters and the Karl Roves and the Swiftboaters are here to stay.

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