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Positively negative


Positively negative

By now, it must seem like you’ve seen a million TV ads for or against President Barack Obama or Gov. Mitt Romney, even though it was only about 35,000 in the Youngstown area as of last week.

But while you may have been off by the numbers, if you said most of the ads were negative, you were right.

By a Washington Post tabulation, 85 percent of the ads bought by Democrats and 91 percent of those bought by Republicans were negative.

Which begs the question: If everyone says they hate negative campaigns, why do both campaigns spend the lion’s share of their money on negative ads?

Because no matter how much people may say they hate negative ads, studies show they work.

Which is a depressing commentary on human nature and a frightening prospect for the future of political discourse.


1NoBS(2016 comments)posted 2 years, 1 month ago

How about the constant harassment of the phone ringing 30 or 40 times a day, every day, with some pre-recorded negative or scare tactic message on the line? Has there been any studies proving that incessant pestering via telephone does any good?

Caller ID shows you which calls to not answer, but the phone still rings, and rings, and rings, and rings ...

And is it really so surprising that this negative garbage works? Look at what passes for entertainment nowadays. Lowest-common-denominator sitcoms that are more mean-spirited than funny, moronic pseudo-reality where bad behavior is glorified, and astoundingly distasteful shows like Jersey Shore and Honey Boo-Boo. If those are what the masses want, then it's no wonder that gossipy and slanderous negative advertising works.

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