Two Servings of Negative Rhetoric a Day

Paul Freedman
Photo by Dan Addison

The Pennsylvania Democratic primary was one of the most fiercely contested of the race. Voters expressed their displeasure with negative ads, with ABC News exit polls showing more than two-thirds of voters believing that Hillary Clinton unfairly attacked Barack Obama. And yet, the state went for Clinton, 55 percent to 45 percent.

So much for America’s disdain for “going negative.” In fact, Associate Professor of Politics Paul Freedman says negative advertising is actually good for you. “The political diet of most Americans is deficient,” says Freedman. “And the role of these ads is to convey useful, digestible information that enhances the ability of Americans to make reasonable political choices.” In his study of multiple elections, Freedman found that voters who saw more campaign advertising were more energized and knowledgeable.

But the campaigns have been all too happy to try to offer the public the sober, reasoned approach they think they want. In early June, when John McCain offered to plot a series of town hall debates with Obama, the Democratic candidate’s campaign manager replied, “We would recommend a format that is less structured and lengthier than the McCain campaign suggests, one that more closely resembles the historic debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.”

“Nobody wants a Lincoln-Douglas debate,” says Freedman. Those debates, which took place 150 years ago during Lincoln’s failed run for the Illinois senate, consisted of a series of lengthy speeches and equally lengthy rebuttals. “Politics isn’t about pristine, hermetically sealed, antiseptic debates. Politics is about argument—about mixing it up over things that matter.” Issues like defense and civil liberties, which Freedman says deserve a dust-up. “If I’m running for president and you think that my plans are not only foolish but put our nation at risk for economic disaster or even—and this became an issue in 2004—another terrorist attack, don’t you have not just a right but an obligation to make that case?”