Is positive campaigning more effective than negative campaigning?

[coloradodem2005]

In other words, is it more effective with voters to promote your agenda and talk about how you want to make things better (ala Kerry) or to attack your opponent and talk about what is wrong with him/her and make them look worse? (ala Bush) What to you think.

[ClassWarrior]

1. Either.

As long as you have the right degree of finesse.

[Q3JR4]

2. ...

If you attack someone's credibility, it may look as if you have nothing else to run on but the attacks.

If you run positive adds about yourself, there's always the chance that your opponent will come along and completely trash you.

Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

I think it all depends on how the voters feel about the negative adds. If they get tired of them pretty quickly, then it's not going to bode well for the one running them.

[ClassWarrior]

3. The voters will always say they dislike negative campaigning.

But they'll respond to it nonetheless if it's done right.

[sangh0]

4. "more effective" at what?

Negative campaigning is more effective when it comes to depressing your opponents base. Positive campaigning is more effctive at encouraging your own base.

[FloridaPat]

5. 8 years of negative campaigning against Clinton made it hard

for Gore to win the election. And I am referring to all those republican investigations through Starr. I have heard so many people complain about the lack of morals with Clinton and the Democrats in general, although it doesn't enter their little heads that maybe lying about going to war, or killing people, or being incompetent is worse for the country.

[MallRat]

6. It depends on the moment.

When all hell was starting to break loose in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib story first broke, the last thing Kerry would've wanted to do is run negative ads against Bush: that's akin to kicking a man while he's down.

So what did the Kerry campaign do? They rolled out a $28 million POSITIVE AD CAMPAIGN. Those ads stood in stark contrast with the ugly headlines in the news, and maybe, just maybe, planted the idea in voters' minds that Kerry has the integrity and experience to fix this mess.

There is a time for both kinds of advertising; it comes down to knowing when that time comes, and I think the Kerry crew is doing a pretty fine job of it.

-MR

[Bandit]

7. Speaking only for myself I despise Negative Campaigning from any candidate

I always feel better voting for someone who is upbeat and positive in their outlook for America. That is one reason I voted for Clinton. He never ever resorted to negative campaigning.

[BillZBubb]

8. Negative campaigning is much more effective short term.

It puts the opponent on the defensive and limits the reach of his/her message. And although people claim to dislike negative ads, they respond to them much more immediately than positive ads. You can quickly drive up your opponents "negatives" with well directed negative ads. Look at what the Bush* ads have done to Kerry. Kerry's negatives are very, very high for a guy who is mostly unknown to voters. BushCo has effectively (and permanently to a lot of people) cast Kerry as a flip-flopper and boring speaker. Sadly, those same people forget that Bush* is a congenital liar who flips and flops on everything and can't even make a coherent sentence.

The negative ads are why this race is still close and remains Bush*s to lose.