Negative Ads Don’t Have Positive Impact
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that both Barack Obama and John McCain should consider running positive ads only: it seems that negative ads have little to no influence on undecided voters.
Attacks do not help distort the other candidate’s image among undecided voters; these voters want to know more about the plans and ideas of both candidates, rather than being presented a charicature of both men(’s views).
However, this does not mean that negative ads are useless: they are highly useful in so far that they “neutralize the other guy’s attacks.” Furthermore, negative ads fire up to the base, ensuring high voter turnout on election day, and highly passionate activists in the preceeding days and weeks.
Having said that, the polls cannot be considered of high scientific value. It does not, for instance, look at the impact of negative ads in the long run; it is generally accepted that the longer one runs specific negative ads, trying to characterize the opponent in one simple manner, it does have a tremendous impact. For this year’s election, one only needs to ask what voters think of McCain’s behavior during the last few weeks.
The most likely answer one will receive is: “eratic.” Why this word? Why does everyone, including in the media, use this word to describe McCain? Because the Obama campaign has pushed this meme for weeks, even using this exact word in e-mails sent out to supporers and members of the media (but I am, to a very large degree, repeating myself).
No, I don’t think the AP’s assessment is correct; I think that there are some negative ads that work, and others that don’t, and again others that do have a tremendous impact, but only if they are repeated over a longer period of time.
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