No Hate in '08?

The Presidential candidates have mostly avoided negative attack ads, but pundits say the campaigns could go "Swift Boat" at any time

by David Kiley

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In mid-February, Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) campaign launched what political pundits widely described as its first negative attack ad against Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.). The TV spot, which ran in Wisconsin in the days leading up to Obama's 17-percentage-point win in the Feb. 20 primary, needled him for choosing not to debate Clinton in the Badger State because he would "prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions." The ad also contended that Obama's proposed health-care plan would be too expensive.

A zinger it was not—and that tells us a lot about the state of political advertising in 2008. Sure, the campaign season could go "Swift Boat" any minute, especially once the general election begins in earnest. But for now the candidates are caught between dueling advisers: campaign vets in both parties telling them that going negative works and those warning them that doing so risks a boomerang effect, turning off voters looking for change. Clinton on Feb. 21 made a point of saying she was honored to be on the same stage as Obama; by the following weekend, however, she was ridiculing his campaign of hope from the Ohio stump. "There are new rules for going negative," says veteran Republican strategist Ed Rogers. "And we are finding out what they are as we go along."

Back in the Day

Things were once so much simpler for people like Rogers. Back in 1988, he was working for George H.W. Bush's campaign, which benefited from a Republican political action committee that concocted the infamous Willie Horton ad. It linked Michael Dukakis to a furloughed murderer who went on to commit a rape while Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts. The Bush campaign then created its own furlough ad. Rogers says the prison furlough issue tested "off the charts" with conservatives and moved a large number of independents to Bush, who, of course, went on to win.

There's a long history of voters saying in surveys and focus groups that they do not like negative advertising. However, proponents of going negative cite their own experience, as well as competing research that shows negative ads can tip the balance in tight contests. In the final weeks of the hard-fought 2004 election, researchers at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame asked 145 graduate students to watch a series of negative ads from Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Senator John Kerry and rate their commitment to each candidate before and after. The researchers found that while most participants continued to support their candidate, 14% switched to the other guy. That's enough of a swing to convince some strategists to go negative.

It's Hip to Be Fair

That was then. This year, the body politic seems in no mood for Willie Horton ads or Swift Boat-style attacks. There seems to be a genuine reaction against the toxic partisanship that has afflicted Washington in recent years. The Clinton campaign drew brickbats from their own supporters and donors when she insinuated in the South Carolina Democratic debate that Obama had represented a slum lord in Chicago. And a New York Times story on Feb. 20 implying that Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) had an illicit affair with a telecommunications lobbyist was roundly criticized on blogs, radio, and TV shows.

Ad experts also point to the 25 million 18- to 29-year-olds expected to vote this year—the so-called Millennials—who aren't down with negativity. "It used to be that young people expressed hipness by being cynical," says Eric Hirshberg, co-president of the Los Angeles office of the Deutsch (IPG) ad agency, who independently produced a viral video for Obama that was adopted by the campaign's Web site. "Now it's an absence of cynicism that signifies hipness."

No one has tapped into that vibe more assiduously, of course, than Obama. Thanks to his mostly positive message and historic possibilities as the first African-American president, Obama makes for a difficult target.