Negative ads work and always have

Over the years many of you have lamented to me and said, “I am so tired of seeing all negative ads with candidates lambasting each other in political campaigns. Why don’t candidates say what they are going to do when they are elected, rather than bashing their opponent mercilessly?”  People also suggest that campaigns are more negative today than in bygone years. Allow me to answer the question in the reverse order. 

Criticizing and slandering your opponent is not new. It was actually more vicious and incendiary in earlier American political life, and much more personal. First of all, there were no television cameras or hidden studios where third party political ad gurus brewed disingenuous ads. Folks in the old days would have to meet their opponents face-to-face at political forums, rallies, and debates. They would trade barbs and insults right in the face of each other. In early American political history, there were instances of fisticuffs and even a duel where opponents were shot. Nothing was off limits, not even peoples’ wives and children. What they did to Andrew Jackson’s wife Rachel was so bad that it eventually caused the poor lady to withdraw and die from depression.