Negative campaigning
Encyclopedia
Negative campaigning, also known more colloquially
as "mudslinging", is trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or of a policy rather than emphasizing one's own positive attributes or preferred policies. In the broadest sense, the term covers any rhetoric in which one refers to one's opponent in an ad hominem
manner.
Negative campaigning can be found in most marketplaces where ideas are contested. In U.S.
politics, "mudslinging" has been called "as American as Mississippi mud". Some research suggests negative campaigning is the norm in all political venues, mitigated only by the dynamics of a particular contest.
Attack ads focus exclusively on the negative aspects of the opponent. There is no positive content in an attack ad, whether it is about the candidate or the opponent. Attack ads usually identify the risks associated with the opponent, often exploiting people’s fears to manipulate and lower the impression voters have of the opponent. Because attack ads have no positive content, they have the potential to be more influential than contrast ads in shaping voters’ views of the sponsoring candidate’s opponent.
Unlike attack ads, contrast ads contain information about both the candidate and the opponent. The information about the candidate is positive, while the information about the opponent is negative. Contrast ads compare and contrast the candidate with the opponent, juxtaposing the positive information about the candidate with the negative information of the opponent. Because contrast ads must contain positive information, contrast ads are seen as less damaging to the political process than attack ads.
One of the most famous such ads was Daisy Girl
by the campaign of Lyndon B. Johnson
that successfully portrayed Republican Barry Goldwater
as threatening nuclear war
. Common negative campaign techniques include painting an opponent as soft on criminals, dishonest, corrupt, or a danger to the nation. One common negative campaigning tactic is attacking the other side for running a negative campaign.
Dirty tricks are also common in negative political campaigns. These generally involve secretly leaking damaging information to the media. This isolates a candidate from backlash and also does not cost any money. The material must be substantive enough to attract media interest, however, and if the truth is discovered it could severely damage a campaign. Other dirty tricks include trying to feed an opponent's team false information hoping they will use it and embarrass themselves.
Often a campaign will use outside organizations, such as lobby groups
, to launch attacks. These can be claimed to be coming from a neutral source and if the allegations turn out not to be true the attacking candidate will not be damaged if the links cannot be proven. Negative campaigning can be conducted by proxy. For instance, highly partisan ads were placed in the 2004 U.S. presidential election by allegedly independent bodies like MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Push poll
s are attacks disguised as telephone polls. They might ask a question like "How would you react if Candidate A was revealed to beat his wife?", giving the impression that Candidate A might beat his wife. Members of the media and of the opposing party are deliberately not called making these tactics all but invisible and unprovable.
G. Gordon Liddy
played a major role in developing these tactics during the Nixon campaign playing an important advisory of rules that led to the campaign of 1972. James Carville
, campaign manager of Bill Clinton
's 1992 election, is also a major proponent of negative tactics. Lee Atwater
, best known for being an advisor to presidents Ronald Reagan
and George H.W. Bush, also pioneered many negative campaign techniques seen in political campaigns today.
uses negative campaigns to steer the public away from what they perceive to be health risks. Similar negative campaigns have been used to rebut mass marketing by tobacco
companies, or to discourage drunk driving. Those who conduct negative political campaigns sometimes say the public needs to know about the person he or she is voting for, even if it is bad. In other words, if a candidate’s opponent is a crook or a bad person, then he or she should be able to tell the public about it.
Cathy Allen, president of Campaign Connection of Seattle, suggested negative campaigning might be the 'proper course' during political contests in the following situations:
Campaign organizers who invest their fortunes in negative approaches do so with considerable research to support the merit of their spending. In a 1996 study, researchers concluded that "the informational benefits of negative political ads possess the capacity to promote political participation, particularly among those otherwise least well equipped for political learning." Their testing found citizens who were aware of negative advertising were more likely to vote than those who didn't express recollection of such ads.
Martin Wattenberg
and Craig Brians, of the University of California, Irvine, considered in their study whether negative campaigning mobilizes or alienates voters. They concluded that data used by Stephen Ansolabehere in a 1994 American Political Science Review article to advance the hypothesis that negative campaigning demobilizes voters was flawed.
A subsequent study done by Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar in 1995 corrected some of the previous study's flaws. This study concluded that negative advertising suppressed voter turnout, particularly for Independent voters. They speculated that campaigns tend to go negative only if the Independent vote is leaning toward the opponent. In doing so, they insure that the swing voters stay home, leaving the election up to base voters. They also found that negative ads have a greater impact on Democrats than on Republicans. According to them, base Republicans will vote no matter what (and will vote only for a Republican), but Democrats can be influenced to either stay home and not vote at all or to switch sides and vote for a Republican. This, combined with the effect negativity has on Independents, led them to conclude that Republicans benefit more from going negative than Democrats.
Other researchers have found different, more positive outcomes from negative campaigns. Rick Farmer, PhD, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Akron
found that negative ads are more memorable than positive ads when they reinforce a preexisting belief and are relevant to the central issues of a marketing campaign. Researchers at the University of Georgia
found the impact of negative ads increases over time, while positive ads used to counteract negative ads lack the power of negative ads . Research also suggests negative campaigning introduces controversy and raises public awareness through additional news coverage .
Some strategists say that an effect of negative campaigning is that while it motivates the base of support it can alienate centrist and undecided voters from the political process, reducing voter turnout
and radicalizing politics.
In a study done by Gina Garramone about how negative advertising affects the political process, it was found that a consequence of negative campaigning is greater image discrimination of the candidates and greater attitude polarization. While positive ads also contributed to the image discrimination and attitude polarization, Garramone found that negative campaigning played a more influential role in the discrimination and polarization than positive campaigning.
Negative ads can produce a backlash. A disastrous ad
was run by the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
in the 1993 Canadian federal election
, apparently emphasizing Liberal Party of Canada
leader Jean Chrétien
's Bell's Palsy
partial facial paralysis in a number of unflattering photos, with the subtext of criticizing his platforms. The ad was badly received while Chrétien took maximum advantage of the opportunity to gain the public's sympathy as a man who struggled with a physical disability and his party's subsequent overwhelming victory in the election helped reduce the governing Conservatives to two seats.
Similar backlash happened to the Liberal Party in the 2006 federal election
for running an attack ad
that suggested that Conservative
leader Stephen Harper
would use Canadian soldiers to patrol Canadian cities, and impose some kind of martial law. The ad was only available from the Liberal Party's web site for a few hours prior to the release of the attack ads on television; nevertheless, it was picked up by the media and widely criticized for its absurdity, in particular the sentence "we're not making this up; we're not allowed to make this stuff up". Liberal MP Keith Martin expressed his disapproval of "whoever the idiot who approved that ad was," shortly before Liberal leader Paul Martin (no relation) stated that he had personally approved them. The effect of the ads was to diminish the credibility of the party's other attack ads. It offended many Canadians, particularly those in the military, some of whom were fighting in Afghanistan
at the time. (See Canadian federal election, 2006
)
More recently, in the 2008 US Senate race in North Carolina
, Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole
attempted an attack ad on Democratic challenger Kay Hagan, who had taken a small lead in polls, by tying her to atheists. Dole's campaign released an ad questioning Hagan's religion and it included a voice saying "There is no God!" over a picture of Kay Hagan's face. The voice was not Hagan's but it is believed the ad implied that it was. Initially, it was thought the ad would work as religion has historically been a very important issue to voters in the American south, but the ad produced a backlash across the state and Hagan responded forcefully with an ad saying that she was a Sunday school teacher and was a religious person. Hagan also claimed Dole was trying to change the subject from the economy (the ad appeared around the same time as the 2008 financial crisis). Hagan's lead in polls doubled and she won the race by a nine point margin.
Because of the possible harm that can come from being seen as a negative campaigner, candidates often pledge to refrain from negative attacks. This pledge is usually abandoned when an opponent is perceived to be "going negative," with the first retaliatory attack being, ironically, an accusation that the opponent is a negative campaigner.
While some research has found advantages and other has found disadvantages, some studies find no difference between negative and positive approaches .
Research published in the Journal of Advertising found that negative political advertising makes the body want to turn away physically, but the mind remembers negative messages. The findings are based on research conducted by James Angelini, professor of communication at the University of Delaware
, in collaboration with Samuel Bradley, assistant professor of advertising at Texas Tech University
, and Sungkyoung Lee of Indiana University
, which used ads that aired during the 2000 presidential election. During the study, the researchers placed electrodes under the eyes of willing participants and showed them a series of 30-second ads from both the George W. Bush
and Al Gore
campaigns. The electrodes picked up on the “startle response,” the automatic eye movement typically seen in response to snakes, spiders and other threats. Compared to positive or neutral messages, negative advertising prompted greater reflex reactions and a desire to move away.
In commercial advertising, various regulations prohibit false advertising
and broadcast campaigns to promote potentially harmful activities, such as advertising tobacco products. Similar regulations have at times been proposed to limit negative political campaigning. Such restrictions have been proposed to regulate political advertising on television and radio, where negative claims might not be fully explained due to time constraints, and would expand disclosure requirements in printed political advertising.
In modern Western societies, however, proposed regulation of public speech is confronted by strong traditions favoring the open exchange of ideas, and by fundamental legal protections such as those of the United States Bill of Rights
. Practical considerations also weigh against regulation of political speech. Using rhetorical devices such as straw man
or red herring
arguments, a negative campaign can insinuate an opponent holds an idea without directly accusing the opponent of favoring those ideas. Within constitutional guidelines, few regulations could lawfully control candidates' statements in public appearances, where comments are often repeated in news broadcasts. To the contrary, public figure
s such as politicians enjoy weaker protection against false allegations than do average citizens.
Colloquialism
A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...
as "mudslinging", is trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or of a policy rather than emphasizing one's own positive attributes or preferred policies. In the broadest sense, the term covers any rhetoric in which one refers to one's opponent in an ad hominem
Ad hominem
An ad hominem , short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it...
manner.
Negative campaigning can be found in most marketplaces where ideas are contested. In U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
politics, "mudslinging" has been called "as American as Mississippi mud". Some research suggests negative campaigning is the norm in all political venues, mitigated only by the dynamics of a particular contest.
Techniques
There are a number of techniques used in negative campaigning. Among the most effective is running advertisements attacking an opponent's personality, record, or opinion. There are two main types of ads used in negative campaigning: attack and contrast.Attack ads focus exclusively on the negative aspects of the opponent. There is no positive content in an attack ad, whether it is about the candidate or the opponent. Attack ads usually identify the risks associated with the opponent, often exploiting people’s fears to manipulate and lower the impression voters have of the opponent. Because attack ads have no positive content, they have the potential to be more influential than contrast ads in shaping voters’ views of the sponsoring candidate’s opponent.
Unlike attack ads, contrast ads contain information about both the candidate and the opponent. The information about the candidate is positive, while the information about the opponent is negative. Contrast ads compare and contrast the candidate with the opponent, juxtaposing the positive information about the candidate with the negative information of the opponent. Because contrast ads must contain positive information, contrast ads are seen as less damaging to the political process than attack ads.
One of the most famous such ads was Daisy Girl
Daisy (television commercial)
"Daisy," sometimes known as "Daisy Girl" or "Peace, Little Girl," was a controversial political advertisement aired on television during the 1964 United States presidential election by incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign...
by the campaign of Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
that successfully portrayed Republican Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
as threatening nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
. Common negative campaign techniques include painting an opponent as soft on criminals, dishonest, corrupt, or a danger to the nation. One common negative campaigning tactic is attacking the other side for running a negative campaign.
Dirty tricks are also common in negative political campaigns. These generally involve secretly leaking damaging information to the media. This isolates a candidate from backlash and also does not cost any money. The material must be substantive enough to attract media interest, however, and if the truth is discovered it could severely damage a campaign. Other dirty tricks include trying to feed an opponent's team false information hoping they will use it and embarrass themselves.
Often a campaign will use outside organizations, such as lobby groups
Lobbying
Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...
, to launch attacks. These can be claimed to be coming from a neutral source and if the allegations turn out not to be true the attacking candidate will not be damaged if the links cannot be proven. Negative campaigning can be conducted by proxy. For instance, highly partisan ads were placed in the 2004 U.S. presidential election by allegedly independent bodies like MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Push poll
Push poll
A push poll is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. In a push poll, large numbers of respondents are contacted, and little or no effort is made to collect and analyze...
s are attacks disguised as telephone polls. They might ask a question like "How would you react if Candidate A was revealed to beat his wife?", giving the impression that Candidate A might beat his wife. Members of the media and of the opposing party are deliberately not called making these tactics all but invisible and unprovable.
G. Gordon Liddy
G. Gordon Liddy
George Gordon Liddy was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit that existed from July–September 1971, during Richard Nixon's presidency. Separately, along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the Watergate burglaries of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in...
played a major role in developing these tactics during the Nixon campaign playing an important advisory of rules that led to the campaign of 1972. James Carville
James Carville
Chester James Carville, Jr. is an American political consultant, commentator, educator, actor, attorney, media personality, and prominent liberal pundit. Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill...
, campaign manager of Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
's 1992 election, is also a major proponent of negative tactics. Lee Atwater
Lee Atwater
Harvey LeRoy "Lee" Atwater was an American political consultant and strategist to the Republican Party. He was an advisor of U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and Chairman of the Republican National Committee.-Childhood and early life:...
, best known for being an advisor to presidents Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
and George H.W. Bush, also pioneered many negative campaign techniques seen in political campaigns today.
Advantages
Sponsors of overt negative campaigns often cite reasons to support mass communication of negative ideas. The Office of National Drug Control PolicyOffice of National Drug Control Policy
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy , a former cabinet level component of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, was established in 1989 by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988...
uses negative campaigns to steer the public away from what they perceive to be health risks. Similar negative campaigns have been used to rebut mass marketing by tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
companies, or to discourage drunk driving. Those who conduct negative political campaigns sometimes say the public needs to know about the person he or she is voting for, even if it is bad. In other words, if a candidate’s opponent is a crook or a bad person, then he or she should be able to tell the public about it.
Cathy Allen, president of Campaign Connection of Seattle, suggested negative campaigning might be the 'proper course' during political contests in the following situations:
- when taking on an incumbent;
- when being significantly outspent;
- when there is irrefutable information that the opponent has done something wrong;
- when the candidate has little name recognition.
Campaign organizers who invest their fortunes in negative approaches do so with considerable research to support the merit of their spending. In a 1996 study, researchers concluded that "the informational benefits of negative political ads possess the capacity to promote political participation, particularly among those otherwise least well equipped for political learning." Their testing found citizens who were aware of negative advertising were more likely to vote than those who didn't express recollection of such ads.
Martin Wattenberg
Martin Wattenberg (political scientist)
Martin P. Wattenberg is a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine. He is an expert on American elections and party politics and is co-author of a popular undergraduate college text on American government, Government in America: People, Policy, and Politics, published by Pearson...
and Craig Brians, of the University of California, Irvine, considered in their study whether negative campaigning mobilizes or alienates voters. They concluded that data used by Stephen Ansolabehere in a 1994 American Political Science Review article to advance the hypothesis that negative campaigning demobilizes voters was flawed.
A subsequent study done by Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar in 1995 corrected some of the previous study's flaws. This study concluded that negative advertising suppressed voter turnout, particularly for Independent voters. They speculated that campaigns tend to go negative only if the Independent vote is leaning toward the opponent. In doing so, they insure that the swing voters stay home, leaving the election up to base voters. They also found that negative ads have a greater impact on Democrats than on Republicans. According to them, base Republicans will vote no matter what (and will vote only for a Republican), but Democrats can be influenced to either stay home and not vote at all or to switch sides and vote for a Republican. This, combined with the effect negativity has on Independents, led them to conclude that Republicans benefit more from going negative than Democrats.
Other researchers have found different, more positive outcomes from negative campaigns. Rick Farmer, PhD, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Akron
University of Akron
The University of Akron is a coeducational public research university located in Akron, Ohio, United States. The university is part of the University System of Ohio. It was founded in 1870 as a small college affiliated with the Universalist Church. In 1913 ownership was transferred to the City of...
found that negative ads are more memorable than positive ads when they reinforce a preexisting belief and are relevant to the central issues of a marketing campaign. Researchers at the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
found the impact of negative ads increases over time, while positive ads used to counteract negative ads lack the power of negative ads . Research also suggests negative campaigning introduces controversy and raises public awareness through additional news coverage .
Risks and consequences
Negative campaigning can evoke negative responses toward the source of the campaign. In addition to the content of negative advertising, the contexts of the ads are also important in analyzing how effective they are and how the ads impact on voter’s perspectives of the political candidates. For example, running back-to-back sequences of attack ads may do more damage to the candidate than to the opponent, particularly if the attack ads utilize the technique of mudslinging, where the negative information presented is of little relevance or value to the overall political process. Additionally, voters typically hold challengers and incumbents to different standards. This is because the incumbent is expected to use more positive campaigning strategies than a challenger as the challenger is trying to prove why he or she is more worthy of the elected position than the incumbent.Some strategists say that an effect of negative campaigning is that while it motivates the base of support it can alienate centrist and undecided voters from the political process, reducing voter turnout
Voter turnout
Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...
and radicalizing politics.
In a study done by Gina Garramone about how negative advertising affects the political process, it was found that a consequence of negative campaigning is greater image discrimination of the candidates and greater attitude polarization. While positive ads also contributed to the image discrimination and attitude polarization, Garramone found that negative campaigning played a more influential role in the discrimination and polarization than positive campaigning.
Negative ads can produce a backlash. A disastrous ad
1993 Chrétien attack ad
During the 1993 Canadian federal election, the Progressive Conservative Party produced a televised attack ad against Jean Chrétien, the Liberal leader. The ad was perceived by many as a focus on Chrétien's facial deformity, caused by Bell's palsy...
was run by the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....
in the 1993 Canadian federal election
Canadian federal election, 1993
The Canadian federal election of 1993 was held on October 25 of that year to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 35th Parliament of Canada. Fourteen parties competed for the 295 seats in the House at that time...
, apparently emphasizing Liberal Party of Canada
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
leader Jean Chrétien
Jean Chrétien
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien , known commonly as Jean Chrétien is a former Canadian politician who was the 20th Prime Minister of Canada. He served in the position for over ten years, from November 4, 1993 to December 12, 2003....
's Bell's Palsy
Bell's palsy
Bell's palsy is a form of facial paralysis resulting from a dysfunction of the cranial nerve VII that results in the inability to control facial muscles on the affected side. Several conditions can cause facial paralysis, e.g., brain tumor, stroke, and Lyme disease. However, if no specific cause...
partial facial paralysis in a number of unflattering photos, with the subtext of criticizing his platforms. The ad was badly received while Chrétien took maximum advantage of the opportunity to gain the public's sympathy as a man who struggled with a physical disability and his party's subsequent overwhelming victory in the election helped reduce the governing Conservatives to two seats.
Similar backlash happened to the Liberal Party in the 2006 federal election
Canadian federal election, 2006
The 2006 Canadian federal election was held on January 23, 2006, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 39th Parliament of Canada. The Conservative Party of Canada won the greatest number of seats: 40.3% of seats, or 124 out of 308, up from 99 seats in 2004, and 36.3% of votes:...
for running an attack ad
2006 Liberal Party of Canada election ads
In the 2006 federal election in Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada used attack ads against Conservative Party of Canada leader Stephen Harper. The Liberals, trailing in polls during the last weeks, resorted to strong and often questionable negative ads directed towards the Conservative party, by...
that suggested that Conservative
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...
leader Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper
Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...
would use Canadian soldiers to patrol Canadian cities, and impose some kind of martial law. The ad was only available from the Liberal Party's web site for a few hours prior to the release of the attack ads on television; nevertheless, it was picked up by the media and widely criticized for its absurdity, in particular the sentence "we're not making this up; we're not allowed to make this stuff up". Liberal MP Keith Martin expressed his disapproval of "whoever the idiot who approved that ad was," shortly before Liberal leader Paul Martin (no relation) stated that he had personally approved them. The effect of the ads was to diminish the credibility of the party's other attack ads. It offended many Canadians, particularly those in the military, some of whom were fighting in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
at the time. (See Canadian federal election, 2006
Canadian federal election, 2006
The 2006 Canadian federal election was held on January 23, 2006, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 39th Parliament of Canada. The Conservative Party of Canada won the greatest number of seats: 40.3% of seats, or 124 out of 308, up from 99 seats in 2004, and 36.3% of votes:...
)
More recently, in the 2008 US Senate race in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole
Elizabeth Dole
Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole is an American politician who served in both the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush presidential administrations, as well as a United States Senator....
attempted an attack ad on Democratic challenger Kay Hagan, who had taken a small lead in polls, by tying her to atheists. Dole's campaign released an ad questioning Hagan's religion and it included a voice saying "There is no God!" over a picture of Kay Hagan's face. The voice was not Hagan's but it is believed the ad implied that it was. Initially, it was thought the ad would work as religion has historically been a very important issue to voters in the American south, but the ad produced a backlash across the state and Hagan responded forcefully with an ad saying that she was a Sunday school teacher and was a religious person. Hagan also claimed Dole was trying to change the subject from the economy (the ad appeared around the same time as the 2008 financial crisis). Hagan's lead in polls doubled and she won the race by a nine point margin.
Because of the possible harm that can come from being seen as a negative campaigner, candidates often pledge to refrain from negative attacks. This pledge is usually abandoned when an opponent is perceived to be "going negative," with the first retaliatory attack being, ironically, an accusation that the opponent is a negative campaigner.
While some research has found advantages and other has found disadvantages, some studies find no difference between negative and positive approaches .
Research published in the Journal of Advertising found that negative political advertising makes the body want to turn away physically, but the mind remembers negative messages. The findings are based on research conducted by James Angelini, professor of communication at the University of Delaware
University of Delaware
The university is organized into seven colleges:* College of Agriculture and Natural Resources* College of Arts and Sciences* Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics* College of Earth, Ocean and Environment* College of Education and Human Development...
, in collaboration with Samuel Bradley, assistant professor of advertising at Texas Tech University
Texas Tech University
Texas Tech University, often referred to as Texas Tech or TTU, is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas, United States. Established on February 10, 1923, and originally known as Texas Technological College, it is the leading institution of the Texas Tech University System and has the...
, and Sungkyoung Lee of Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
, which used ads that aired during the 2000 presidential election. During the study, the researchers placed electrodes under the eyes of willing participants and showed them a series of 30-second ads from both the George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
campaigns. The electrodes picked up on the “startle response,” the automatic eye movement typically seen in response to snakes, spiders and other threats. Compared to positive or neutral messages, negative advertising prompted greater reflex reactions and a desire to move away.
Controversy and regulation
Critics of negative campaigns sometimes contend that negative ads are not always used for the stated reason. In some cases, negative campaigning presents twisted or spun information under the guise of bringing hidden negatives into the light. Sometimes those who practice negative campaigning and publicity also denounce the approach when used against their side by telling the attacker to be nice, be civil, stay clean, be positive, not hurt others, not get personal, not to scare people, etc.In commercial advertising, various regulations prohibit false advertising
False advertising
False advertising or deceptive advertising is the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. As advertising has the potential to persuade people into commercial transactions that they might otherwise avoid, many governments around the world use regulations to control false, deceptive or...
and broadcast campaigns to promote potentially harmful activities, such as advertising tobacco products. Similar regulations have at times been proposed to limit negative political campaigning. Such restrictions have been proposed to regulate political advertising on television and radio, where negative claims might not be fully explained due to time constraints, and would expand disclosure requirements in printed political advertising.
In modern Western societies, however, proposed regulation of public speech is confronted by strong traditions favoring the open exchange of ideas, and by fundamental legal protections such as those of the United States Bill of Rights
United States Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
. Practical considerations also weigh against regulation of political speech. Using rhetorical devices such as straw man
Straw man
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position, twisting his words or by means of [false] assumptions...
or red herring
Ignoratio elenchi
Ignoratio elenchi is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question...
arguments, a negative campaign can insinuate an opponent holds an idea without directly accusing the opponent of favoring those ideas. Within constitutional guidelines, few regulations could lawfully control candidates' statements in public appearances, where comments are often repeated in news broadcasts. To the contrary, public figure
Public figure
Public figure is a legal term applied in the context of defamation actions as well as invasion of privacy. A public figure cannot base a lawsuit on incorrect harmful statements unless there is proof that the writer or publisher acted with actual malice...
s such as politicians enjoy weaker protection against false allegations than do average citizens.
United States
- The Coffin HandbillsCoffin HandbillsThe Coffin Handbills were a series of pamphlets attacking Andrew Jackson during the 1828 United States presidential election. Jackson was running against incumbent John Quincy Adams, who decided to attack Jackson's ethics and moral character. The first handbill was produced by Charles Hammond, a...
used by supporters of John Quincy AdamsJohn Quincy AdamsJohn Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
against Andrew JacksonAndrew JacksonAndrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
in the 1828 presidential campaignUnited States presidential election, 1828The United States presidential election of 1828 featured a rematch between John Quincy Adams, now incumbent President, and Andrew Jackson, the runner-up in the 1824 election. With no other major candidates, Jackson and his chief ally Martin Van Buren consolidated their bases in the South and New...
. Jackson's mother was called a prostitute, and his wife an adulteress. - The Daisy ad used by Lyndon Johnson against Barry GoldwaterBarry GoldwaterBarry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
in the United States presidential election, 1964United States presidential election, 1964The United States presidential election of 1964 was held on November 3, 1964. Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had come to office less than a year earlier following the assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. Johnson, who had successfully associated himself with Kennedy's...
. - "Black baby of John McCainJohn McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
" slur in the George W. Bush primary campaign. - Willie HortonWillie HortonWilliam R. "Willie" Horton is an American convicted felon who, while serving a life sentence for murder, without the possibility of parole, was the beneficiary of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program...
and Revolving DoorRevolving Door (television advertisement)"Revolving Door" is a famous negative television commercial made for the 1988 United States Presidential Campaign. Along with the Willie Horton "Weekend Passes" advertisement, it is considered to be a prime factor in George H.W. Bush's defeat of Michael Dukakis The ad was produced by political...
ads used by in the 1988 presidential campaignUnited States presidential election, 1988The United States presidential election of 1988 featured no incumbent president, as President Ronald Reagan was unable to seek re-election after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the Twenty-second Amendment. Reagan's Vice President, George H. W. Bush, won the Republican nomination, while the...
against Michael DukakisMichael DukakisMichael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...
. - The "Convention Ad" run by Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
against Hubert HumphreyHubert HumphreyHubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
in the 1968 presidential electionUnited States presidential election, 1968The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial United States presidential election. Coming four years after Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won in a historic landslide, it saw Johnson forced out of the race and Republican Richard Nixon elected...
. - Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion Comment by Reverend Samuel Burchard in the 1884 presidential electionUnited States presidential election, 1884The United States presidential election of 1884 saw the first election of a Democrat as President of the United States since the election of 1856. New York Governor Grover Cleveland narrowly defeated Republican former United States Senator James G. Blaine of Maine to break the longest losing streak...
. - Attacks against George W. Bush's military record in the 2004 presidential electionUnited States presidential election, 2004The United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...
, and attacks against John KerryJohn KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
's Vietnam service record by some Navy Swift Boat veterans of the Vietnam WarVietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. - COINTELPROCOINTELPROCOINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...
campaign by the Federal Bureau of InvestigationFederal Bureau of InvestigationThe Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
against civil rightsCivil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activists in the US from 1956 to 1970. - 1993 "Harry and LouiseHarry and Louise"Harry and Louise" was a $14 to $20 million year-long television advertising campaign funded by the Health Insurance Association of America —a predecessor of the current America’s Health Insurance Plans —a health insurance industry lobby group, that ran intermittently from September 8, 1993 to...
" ads attacking President Bill ClintonBill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
's health-care reform proposals. - Checkpoint campaign in Billboard magazine claiming competitor's equipment damages audio media.
- Miller Brewing Co.Miller BrewingThe Miller Brewing Company is an American beer brewing company owned by the United Kingdom-based SABMiller. Its regional headquarters are located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the company has brewing facilities in Albany, Georgia; Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin; Eden, North Carolina; Fort Worth, Texas;...
's and Anheuser Busch Brewing Co.'s 2005 advertisements attacking each other's products. - The now infamous 3 am Whitehouse Phone Call commercial made by the campaign of Democratic Presidential Hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton in her 2008 presidential campaign against Democratic Presidential Nominee, Senator Barack ObamaBarack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
.
- Elizabeth DoleElizabeth DoleMary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole is an American politician who served in both the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush presidential administrations, as well as a United States Senator....
's ad against Democratic challenger Kay Hagan in her 2008 Senate re-election campaignUnited States Senate election in North Carolina, 2008The 2008 United States Senate election in North Carolina was held on November 4, 2008. The Senate election coincided with the presidential, U.S. House elections, gubernatorial, Council of State, and statewide judicial elections. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole ran for re-election...
, where Hagan was said to be "Godless". The ad backfired, as it sharply reduced support for Dole. Dole was defeated by Hagan in the election.
Elsewhere
- New Zealand: In the 1975 New Zealand general electionNew Zealand general election, 1975The 1975 New Zealand general election was held to elect MPs to the 38th session of the New Zealand Parliament. It was the first election in New Zealand where 18-20 year olds and all permanent residents of New Zealand were eligible to vote, although only citizens were able to be...
, the opposing National PartyNew Zealand National PartyThe New Zealand National Party is the largest party in the New Zealand House of Representatives and in November 2008 formed a minority government with support from three minor parties.-Policies:...
launched the infamous "Dancing Cossacks" television advertisement. Animated by Hanna Barbera, the attack advert claimed the incumbent Labour PartyNew Zealand Labour PartyThe New Zealand Labour Party is a New Zealand political party. It describes itself as centre-left and socially progressive and has been one of the two primary parties of New Zealand politics since 1935....
's recently-introduced compulsory superannuation scheme could eventually lead to Soviet-style communism. - Canada: In the 1993 Canadian federal election, the Progressive Conservative PartyProgressive Conservative Party of CanadaThe Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....
launched attack ads that were widely seen to be mocking opposing candidate Jean Chrétien's facial deformity. See: 1993 Chrétien attack ad1993 Chrétien attack adDuring the 1993 Canadian federal election, the Progressive Conservative Party produced a televised attack ad against Jean Chrétien, the Liberal leader. The ad was perceived by many as a focus on Chrétien's facial deformity, caused by Bell's palsy... - Claim in 2001 by the Conservatives that LabourLabour Party (UK)The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
policy had led to serious crimes by released prisoners, similar to Willie Horton - Mexico: in the 2006 presidential election, current president Felipe CalderónFelipe CalderónFelipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa is the current President of Mexico. He assumed office on December 1, 2006, and was elected for a single six-year term through 2012...
launched TV ads that stated his opponent, Andrés Manuel López ObradorAndrés Manuel López ObradorAndrés Manuel López Obrador , also known as AMLO or El Peje, is a Mexican politician who held the position of Head of Government of the Federal District from 2000 to 2005, before resigning in July 2005 to contend the 2006 presidential election, representing the unsuccessful Coalition for the Good...
, was "a danger to Mexico". To this day, López Obrador continues blaming the negative campaign for his defeat and saying that it was part of a conspiracy that the Mexican business eliteEliteElite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...
planned against him. - Canada: In the 2008 Canadian federal electionCanadian federal election, 2008The 2008 Canadian federal election was held on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 40th Canadian Parliament after the previous parliament had been dissolved by the Governor General on September 7, 2008...
, the Conservative PartyConservative Party of CanadaThe Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...
released an ad featuring Opposition Leader Stéphane DionStéphane DionStéphane Maurice Dion, PC, MP is a Canadian politician who has been the Member of Parliament for the riding of Saint-Laurent–Cartierville in Montreal since 1996. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian House of Commons from 2006 to 2008...
being defecated on by an animated puffinPuffinPuffins are any of three small species of auk in the bird genus Fratercula with a brightly coloured beak during the breeding season. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crevices among...
. Harper later apologized for the ad.