Posted on behalf of Jackie Risotto:
With so many variables at hand the election is still in reach of either candidate
With the election only one day away McCain and Obama are trying to do last minute campaigning in battleground states. Candidates are urging voters to get out to the polls on November 4th and cast their votes. Since the beginning of Barack Obama’s campaign he has made it clear that he wanted there to be early voting and it may be turning out in his favor. According to an article from USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-21-early-voting_N.htm) the ability for voters to cast their ballots before Election Day could give the Democrats a nice lead in the election. However, the Republicans feel as though the Democrats are wasting their time. Although this doesn’t mean a secure win for Obama, it is not good for John McCain. Many more people are using the early voting option for this election than they did in previous elections. According to Paul Gronke of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College, “The District of Columbia and 34 states allow early in-person voting. All states accept absentee ballots. Up to one-third of all voters are expected to vote before Election Day, up from 20% in 2004 and 15% in 2000.” Even though the Democrats may lead in the early voting polls, everything could change on November 4th.
With the election so close in various polls, (http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/whos-ahead/polling/index.html#NY_7) the election is in arms reach of Barack Obama and John McCain. Even though Obama is in the lead the battleground states are more important than ever. That is why both candidates have elected to campaign in swing states until the last minute and John McCain really better focus in on Pennsylvania because is things work towards his favor than this state can make or break the election for him. Although Obama is currently ahead in Pennsylvania the Republican National Committee is putting out negative commercials about Obama and his former pastor, an issue that I thought that everyone has moved past a while ago. Does John McCain really believe that negative campaigning at this stage in the game is a good move? The republican committee is also using previous statements from Hilary Clinton against Obama; another low blow. The statement said, “In the White House there is no time for speeches and on-the-job training. Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign and Senator Obama will bring a speech that he gave in 2002. I think that is a significant difference” (http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/02/republican-committee-uses-hillary-criticism-obama-latest-robocall/). While Clinton’s spokeswoman has said that this was not in support of McCain, the Republicans are still trying to spin it in their favor. In “Seducing America”, Hart describes the effects of this new twist in political ad campaigns. It states, “In a sample of 803 political commercials, only 134 (less than 17%) addressed policy questions and only 50 of these latter advertisements (6.2% of the 803) ‘contained specific policy positions’” (55). All of this makes me wonder, with the election literally hours away, why aren’t they leaving positive McCain messages on people’s answering machines? Why is it that throughout this election it seems the Republicans have constantly been the ones to take the low road? According to Handbook of Political Communication Kaid states that, “There is no universally accepted definition of negative advertisements, but most would agree that they basically are opponent focused, rather than candidate focused. That is, negative ads concentrate on what is wrong with the opponent, either personally or in terms of issue or policy stances” (Kaid, p. 157). By the Republican National Committee putting out a televised ad about Obama and his former pastor, they are continuing to negatively attack Obama personally. Could this drive more voters away from McCain? Or could it put negative thoughts in people’s minds regarding Obama right before the election causing them to switch their votes? All of these questions will be answered this week.
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Concerning John McCain believing in negative campaigning at this point in the game, the ad was not sponsored nor approved by the McCain campaign. Rehashing an issue that the country has already gone through earlier is a desperate attempt on the part of a pac to get John McCain elected through fear tactics. I think that this ad does not have the capability to drive more people away from Obama. It will scare conservatives of course, but they are not the ones who will be voting for Obama. They are voting for McCain. Not just this last minute ad, but the entire campaign season, the McCain campaign has been running negative campaign ads. Certainly this does not help his case when the majority of American people are tired of this type of campaigning. Kaid states that “Many studies have found that exposure to negative ads has no discernible effect on levels of political trust or efficacy” (Kaid 175). It is not really understand why John McCain or his campaign advisors would run a campaign based mostly on negative ads if they are not especially effective. Another reason why Obama is popular is because he promised not to run such a negative campaign, and for the most part he has made good on that promise. Even at the last minute, the last few days he has been running a commercial that basically explains his issue positions and does not directly attack McCain. Maybe the Reverend Wright commercial will change some voters’ minds about voting for Obama, but I think it will be hardly enough to change the lead that he has. According to Kaid, “Some have suggested that the very existence of negative advertising has negative consequences in the form of lower voting turnout” (Kaid 174). This does not seem to be the case in this election. Voters have reported waiting in line for hours just to cast their ballots in the battleground states. Even here in Connecticut, one of my professors this morning said that she waited two hours in line and had to leave because she had to teach class.
As for the Hillary Clinton statement that has been used against Obama by the Republicans, this is typical of any campaign. Since the primary season was so contested between Obama and Hillary, the Republicans would have been stupid if they did not exploit one of her statements against Obama. I think that the Republicans have been taking the low road this election because they have no positive things to say about their party in recent times. Their main leader, President Bush, has not really accomplished anything for them to be proud of. His approval ratings are now in the twenties. The whole campaign, McCain has been trying to distance himself from Bush and Bush policies. SNL even ran a skit about McCain trying to run away from Will Ferrell’s George Bush’s very public endorsement. Another slogan for the McCain campaign has been maverick, that they are not afraid of crossing party lines. Certainly McCain did not want to overly emphasize the fact that he is a Republican. The only other road to take in the eyes of the McCain campaign was to attack the other side.
I think that negative ads can definitely stick in a person’s mind, but I really don’t think it can sway someone’s vote a significant amount, especially if that person is pretty set on who they are voting for. Right now it is after the election, so obviously, those ads really didn’t affect that many voters, or enough voters, since Obama did win. People may have been turned off by the negative ads—either turned off by McCain putting up those negative ads or turned off by Obama since the negative content was about him. Either way, I don’t feel that it could completely sway that many people one way or the other. Obviously, it didn’t. Those negative ads may affect the independent voters in some way (since they are unsure of who they are voting for and still deciding), as I think those are the people the ads are aimed at, but anyone else who knows who they are voting for most likely aren't affected at all by these negative ads. It could also be a combination of negative ads plus any media biases or tones from various media sources that affect voters. As Kaid states in the Handbook of Political Communication Research, “Although they [Kahn and Kenney (1999)] found a possibility that independents and those less interested in politics might be turned away from voting by exposure to negative messages, their study showed that negativity in news tone may be more harmful to turnout for this group than negativity in ads” (175). In addition, other studies found that negative ads could “increase levels political cynicism and alienation,” while other studies found that “exposure to negative ads have no discernible effect on levels of political trust, cynicism, alienation, or efficacy” (Kaid 175). I guess a million studies can be done and each will have a different result. However, as far as this campaign goes, it shows that negative ads about Obama didn’t really matter nor do much harm to him anyway! Overall, I would stick to less negative ads about your opponent and more on the positives about yourself. For me, I'd rather hear the positives about a candidate than putting another person down so much.
Well I guess I am writing from a little different point of view since its Wednesday morning, but at least now we can see how the ads really worked!
The campaigns both ran negative ads, and I think that they were pretty true to form as far as what past campaigns have done. Kaid points out that political ads are more like political promotions: "Although politicians and statesmen have sought to promote themselves and their ideas throughout the history and evolution of democratic systems of government, political advertising is often considered a relatively modern form of political promotion." (Kaid 157). Not only are the ads to promote themselves, they are to knock down their opponent. Towards the end of the campaigns it seemed like neither one of them were doing much to actually promote their own ideas. What they were doing was either attacking one another or making comparative ads, but only about the issues that their opponent brought up.
In my opinion, there is only so many people that ads can affect. This race was different from many others in that a lot of people felt very strongly about one candidate or the other, and even the undecided voters ended up voting pretty much overwhelmingly for Obama. I heard on the news last night someone saying that it was really a race between Obama and the entire Republican party, meaning George Bush and all of the negativity that surrounded that whole mess.
Anyway... no more ads! No more polls! Hooray!!!!
First of all, I’m with Pilar on the whole, no more ads thing! Yay!
But to cut to the chase a little bit more, yes, I agree with the Kaid Handbook that negative ads tend to be remembered more (172). But I don’t think that it’s a good thing that the only negative ads I can remember came out against (President-elect) Barack Obama. That is where I think things went wrong for the Republicans. It wasn’t that they used negative campaign ads, it’s that it felt so overwhelmingly one sided that the ad recall became more of John McCain is really negative, not, wow Obama looks like a bad choice. As it says in the Handbook, “Positive ads are more effective than negative or comparative ads at enhancing attitudes towards candidates” (Kaid 172). I don’t think John McCain honestly needed a lot of help at enhancing a negative image, and I think that attitude was a big issue this election. Hope and change sound like nice buzzwords, but don’t really say anything more specific as far as policy is concerned. However, the idea of hope and the idea of change do say a lot as far as attitude is concerned, and I think that’s what we saw last night, reflected in the excitement, cheers, and tears of so many people. I honestly do not think that one ad or a series of positive ads last minute would have made a lot of difference for John McCain as far as voting is concerned, it is a strategy that he probably should have invested more time into earlier in the campaign. Clearly the advertisements with Obama and his former pastor were not really effective, but then again, who’s to say that the margin of victory may have been greater without it?
Since the election is now finally over we can positively say that the negative campaign ads did not work for McCain. I think the last mintue switch back to negative campaign ads was a last ditch effort to stay afloat in this election. Normally i believe it is human nature to always rememeber the negative things you hear versus the positive. but when it comes to elections i feel that we the voters are expecting negative things to be said and attacks on their opponents. I think the Republicans where looking for the same success that Clinton recieved in the '92 campaign when they attacked the issue of the ecconomy under Bush. "Marc Hetherington (1996) argues that negative media assessments of the economy contributed to Clinton's victory in the 1992 election." (319 Kaid). While it helped Clinton i think the continual negative messages from McCain ultimately turned everyone off because they weren't always policy based as much as they where personal attacks, which probably turned off many voters who at the last minute wanted know the facts.
The ad’s that ran connecting Obama to Reverend Wright the last few days before the election were sponsored by an independent group and not John McCain. While negative campaign ads are often looked down upon by the public, they do work sometimes, especially the ones from independent groups. In the Handbook of Political Communication Research, Lynda Lee Kaid states that, “research has shown that negative ads can be more effective when sponsored by a third party or independent source (173).” This was proven true in the 2004 election, when negative ads aimed at John Kerry by a group called the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” were released a couple of weeks before the election attacking Kerry’s honesty and trustworthiness about his military service. A series of these ads ran and many point to those ads as a major blow to Kerry’s hopes to become President.
Obliviously this year’s ads were not as effective as those seen in 2004, mostly because American’s had heard a lot about Reverend Wright in the past and knew all about him, while in 2004 the ads ran attacks that were brand new to the American public. Negative ads will never be popular among the public, and often times they won’t work in swaying their vote. But they can be effective sometimes, and that is what that organization was hoping for when they started running those ads right before the election.
I too am writing this post after the results, so I have a different perspective. With that being said, I think that although both candidates used alot of negative advertisements througout their campaigns, Barack Obama was looked as the more positive candidate perhaps because of the type of language he used throughout the past year. Words and phrases like "hope" and "yes we can" were repeated over and over again so that automatically people associated them to Obama. These phrases tap into peoples emotions more than their stance on the issues of the campaign. According to the article on time.com, it was "Thanks to John McCain and Sarah Palin, he's refined the art of attacking an opponent by flinging their own words back at them." Barack Obama is ovbiously a gifted speaker and has been able to graciously attack his opponent without sounding rude or condecending. It has been a combination of aspects like his strategic attack ads, brilliant speeches, and inspired supporters that have allowed him to make such great American history.
I’d have to agree with Jill when she says that a million studies can be done about this subject, and each will have different results. For me, I definitely thought that John McCain’s negative ads would have an effect on undecided voters in this election, because so many people are so critical of Obama, his personality and his plan for our country. John McCain seemed to take advantage of some mistakes that Obama had made in the past and he used those advantages in these ads. I thought that for sure that what was put out in the media by McCain would have negative effects on Obama’s campaign, but I was wrong. What Kaid says in the Handbook stands true for this election. She states that “Many studies have found that exposure to negative ads has no discernible effect on levels of political trust, cynicism, alienation, or efficacy” (Kaid 175). For a long time I thought that all of these negative ads would have at least some effect on undecided voters and push them away from Obama, but I was very wrong. Many of the swing states went in the direction of Obama, which either makes me think that they didn’t pay attention to the negative ads or they were turned off by them and went the other way.
I think that this late in the game, the negative Obama ad would have no effect on the decisions the voters make (as we have seen since Obama is now our new President!!)
Throwing out the negative Obama ad right before the election was, in my opinion, done in poor taste on the oppenants part. McCain had never made this a big part of his campaign before and suddenly throwing the information out there simply makes his party seem desperate.
I would imagine that most people already had their minds made up and personally, this late into the election, I was paying the media no mind.
In the Seducing America book, Hart states that "a more progressive set of observers argues that politics has fallen on hard times because it is no longer emotionally available to the citizenry" (15). I beg to differ. I would argue that politics have gotten TOO emotionally involved.
The last minute negative ads by McCain seemed almost babyish, a way of him crying out, "THAT'S NOT FAIR!" It was too emotional. McCain should have focused more on positive reinforcement for his party rather than bashing Obama.
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