Saturday, December 29, 2007

A Prediction for 2008


Quote of the day:
“If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience.”
--George Bernard Shaw

We will soon turn the corner into 2008. A presidential election year.

I don’t know about you, but I’m already a bit weary of the presidential campaign.

I don’t think I’m risking too much by predicting that this will be the most-negative and nasty presidential campaign in modern history.

This isn’t because the people involved are especially negative or nasty. It is because negative campaigns are so incredibly effective.

They are so effective because we are human. And humans have a much stronger emotional reaction to negative statements than to positive ones.

The intensity of the reaction ensures two things. First, we will remember the negative statement much more readily than anything positive. Second, we will give it emotional credence, even if it turns out to be untrue or grossly exaggerated.

Due to the fact that the act of making an accusation is itself a negative, presidential candidates distance themselves from negative campaigning, especially if the charges are outrageous.

Also, to be really effective, a negative campaign takes a huge amount of money. So negative campaigns are conducted by well-heeled and firewalled surrogates--either individuals or organizations.

The best recent example of this is Richard Scaife’s 2004 Swift Boat smear of John Kerry. This campaign had no traceable connection to the Bush campaign. To say it had no actual connection to Bush’s campaign is, of course, laughable.

The Swift Boat campaign was ludicrous and simply wrong. But it had a strong effect on independent voters.

Those same independent or “swing” voters are in play in 2008. I know the Republican candidate will do the most-effective thing to send them his way. And that is negative campaigning.

I never thought I’d hope for more negative campaigning. But I hope the Democrats give as good as they get.

So it’ll be nasty.

And ultimately have little to do with actual governing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Craig,
Check out the comic strip Blondie for today (Jan.7)if you haven't already. It made me chuckle.