meme for AFTER the election: Negative attack ads DON"T WORK

[Lerkfish]

After Kerry is elected, after 120 million dollars spent on attack ads prove worthless, it would be great if the Roves in the world would tossed out with the refuse, AND people get the CLEAR message that trying to get us to HATE the other candidate is no substitute for the lack of a record, or a platform worth voting for.

Say it loud, say it proud, WE DON"T VOTE NEGATIVE.

(/rant)

[TahitiNut]

1. Babies and bathwater.

There's a difference between 'attack ads' that LIE and deliberately misrepresent an opponent's position and 'attack ads' that accurately portray an opponent's behavior.

Showing Bush* sitting for over 7 minutes following along with a drain bead look on his face while school kids read "The Pet Goat" is neither lying nor a misrepresentation.

When the 'neagtives' are there, show 'em.

[Lerkfish]

3. good point. still, I think people in general are fed up with attack ads.

but your point is a very valid one.

Maybe we just should not allow people like Rove to operate.

[orwell]

2. Plan of Attack

Attack ads do work. The problem is that the * regime had to go to them far earlier than they hoped because Dim Son's record is so god-awful and Kerry had such strong early Mo.

The ads that came out early in the campaign about Kerry's so-called "flip-flops" stuck with many voters. So did the lies offered by the Swifties.

Even though Kerry will win this, he will look back at his campaign's decision to ignore the Swifties as a major blunder. Not only did it let the media shamelessly run with the story during the slow news month of August, it planted seeds of doubt about Kerry's ability to defend the nation. The underlying message to both Kerry haters and Kerry supporters was if he wouldn't come out blasting against lies about him personally, how could he "blast" the terrorists.

This is all essentially crap to anyone who sees through the spin, but unfortuanately most media-addled, TV-consumption machines don't.