Negative campaigning
[1] One of the most famous attack ads was Daisy Girl by the campaign of Lyndon B. Johnson that successfully portrayed Republican Barry Goldwater as threatening nuclear war.
Common attack ad themes include painting an opponent as soft on criminals, dishonest, corrupt, or a danger to the nation.
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.
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.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy uses negative campaigns to steer the public away from health risks.
Similar negative campaigns have been used to rebut mass marketing by tobacco companies, or to discourage drunk driving.
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.
[3] Research also suggests negative campaigning introduces controversy and raises public awareness through additional news coverage.
Similarly, political candidates and parties have been found to adapt the strength of their negative messages during election campaigns in order to preserve the chances for post-electoral collaboration in countries with frequent coalition governments.
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 partial facial paralysis, which was caused by Bell's palsy, in a number of unflattering photos, with the subtext of criticizing his platforms.
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 Progressive Conservatives to two seats, along with losing official party status.
(See 2006 Canadian federal election) 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.
Hagan also claimed Dole was trying to change the subject from the economy (the ad appeared during the Great Recession).
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.
Compared to positive or neutral messages, negative advertising prompted greater reflex reactions and a desire to move away.
Some of the negativity's drivers stated are: The attacker's personality traits (Big Five, Dark Triad, Populism),[10] the media environment,[11][5] and election-related factors[12][13][14][10] (competitiveness, a candidate's rank in polls, type of election, party system).
[15] Some research suggests negative campaigning is the norm in all political venues, mitigated only by the dynamics of a particular contest.
