Michael Swickard
We just finished what seemed to most people to be a forever campaign of hard-hitting, ugly and downright nasty negative advertising. It started with, “How can anyone trust someone who would return a library book in third grade three days late? And, the good people of New Mexico deserve a better representative than someone who would spell chile with an i in seventh grade.”
Quickly it moved to, “No one can possibly vote for a candidate who does unspeakable things to small animals in the dead of night.”
No lie proved to be too small or liar too big. Only those running unopposed and a few notable exceptions restrained themselves. So we, the public, suffered day after day, week after week. It was relentless. The campaign advertising was like getting the very same tooth filled every day for an entire year. It was tedious at best, mind boggling at worse.
Everyone I know was put off by negative advertising this last election cycle. Yet, like the weather, people complain a lot but do nothing about it.
What is there to do? For the weather I advise moving to my area because many people cannot identify the several types of snow shovels as anyone in the great north can. As to negative advertising, perhaps there is something to do. I will propose how to stomp it out.
The product of political consultants
I believe negative advertising is the product of political consultants. You or I would never call our neighbor such foul or fowl names because we are restrained by upbringing and our nature. Not so political consultants who say softly in the ear of the candidate, “You do want to win?” The candidate says, “Yes.”
So the consultant has the candidate right where negative advertising seems like the only thing to do if the candidate really wants to win. “Go call your opponent a poo-poo head.”
But there is one surprising fact seemingly lost in the last election. While the most virulent negative ads did seem to get lots of attention, something that no one is discussing is that the candidate who aired the first negative ad of the general election in the governor’s race did not win. So going negative might not actually work. Or at least going negative first might not work. Stay tuned, we might be able to use that fact.
Let us reason together. About one millisecond after Susana Martinez secured the nomination as the Republican candidate for governor it happened. The Diane Denish campaign went very negative. It appears to be the work of some political consultant who deserves to be dropped down an empty elevator shaft.
One second Diane Denish hinted she did not even know who this person was and then the next second Diane Denish hit the throttle for a full media blitz against the very notion the Susana Martinez was an appropriate candidate for governor.
It came in a rush of advertising. Using faulty information, the airwaves were full of how Susana Martinez was a bad district attorney. For a few brief seconds it worked and seemed to stun the Martinez folks, but then they fired back. The attacks against Martinez uniformly did not work and the charges did not stick. Instead, Martinez got a real boost.
Don’t vote for the first to go negative
One fact is certain. In every campaign one candidate starts the scummy ads. Maybe we could all take a pledge that first candidate in each race going negative, as judged by a neutral panel, loses our votes. If even 5 percent of voters signed that pledge and then voted as such, it might get the right people’s attention.
The hard part is the question of what is negative. Is it pointing out your opponent’s legitimate voting record? I think not. I believe negative advertising is the construction of ads that are veracity-optional.
So we need a neutral organization with impeccable credentials to tackle deciding the exact moment the first candidate goes negative, and then we must have the resolve to punish that first person going negative by withholding our vote and money. We might get their attention with that. Let us see what the consultants say about that approach to their advice.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.
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