Going Negative: A Long, Sordid but Often Effective History

Oct. 27, 2006— -- Looking for a theme in this year's negative campaigning? How about sex? The ad getting the most buzz depicts an attractive blonde, not overburdened with clothing, claiming "I met Harold at the Playboy party."

She then invites "Harold," presumably Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford, who is running for a Senate seat, to "call me." Ford called the ad "silly." His Republican opponent, Bob Corker, called it "tacky" but said he cannot stop it because an independent group paid for it. This may be the best-known negative ad so far this fall, but there's more.

In Wisconsin, Republican challenger Paul Nelson played the sex card against Democratic incumbent Ron Kind. In Nelson's ad the narrator intones "Ron Kind has no trouble spending your money. He would just rather spend it on sex.

"Instead of spending money on cancer research, Ron Kind voted to spend your money to study the sex lives of Vietnamese prostitutes. Instead of spending money to study heart disease, Ron Kind spent your money to study the masturbation habits of old men ... Ron Kind has spent your tax dollars to pay teenage girls to watch pornographic movies with probes attached to their genitalia."

Kind says he never supported any of the items cited in the ad. The executive director of the Wisconsin Republican party denounced the ad, and some TV stations refused to air it. But it is still on Nelson's Web site.

Attacks From Both Sides

In New York, Republicans targeted Democratic House candidate Michael Arcuri with an ad alleging he had phone sex and charged it to taxpayers.

"The telephone number to an adult fantasy Hotline appeared on Michael Arcuri's NewYork City hotel room bill while he was there on official business. The call was charged to Oneida County taxpayers. Arcuri has denied it, but the facts are there," the narrator of the ad says.

Arcuri does indeed deny it, and said one of his aides misdialed while trying to call a state agency with an almost identical number.

In Virginia's bitterly contested Senate race, GOP incumbent George Allen's campaign is quoting a passage about oral sex from the book "Lost Soldiers," which Democrat Jim Webb wrote five years ago about Vietnam. The Allen campaign also quotes sexual passages from other books Webb wrote, including "A Sense of Honor": "If she'd just get laid every now and then, she'd mellow out and stop being such a witch."

A Webb campaign spokesman, Kristian Denny Todd, responded, "The bottom line is that I think it's sad and pathetic that the Allen campaign has nothing but senseless attacks.. Obviously, they're desperate ... and that includes taking things out of context, lying and distorting facts."

But Democrats can play hardball, too. For example, in Pennsylvania, where Republican Congressman Don Sherwood's private life gave them plenty of material. The ad states "Don Sherwood's mistress made a 911 call alleging that he had choked her. Don Sherwood campaigned on family values. He has no family values."

Sherwood, in his own ad, apologized for the affair, but denied that he tried to strangle his girlfriend.

A Basis in History, but Not Reality

Many charges in negative campaigning have little basis in reality. Still, political consultants say going negative often works, and has a long if not distinguished history.

George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential win is in part attributed to the Willie Horton ad, which portrayed Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis as soft on criminals. The ad said Dukakis backed a prison furlough program that resulted in freedom for Horton, who was serving a life sentence for murder. Horton, while free, committed rape and armed robbery.

More recently, in the 2000 Republican primary, George Bush's supporters called Southerners to ask whether they would vote for Sen. John McCain if they knew he had an illegitimate black child. The charge was not true. But analysts believe it hurt McCain.

Four years later, Bush supporters questioned Sen. John Kerry's war record in Vietnam. Democratic consultants believe Kerry might be in the White House now if he had been more effective in answering the charges.

But the mother of all negative ads was the famous "Daisy" ad in the 1964 race implying that GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater might start a nuclear war.

The ad aired only once because it was widely criticized for alarming the nation about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. Still, analysts believe it helped President Lyndon Johnson win easily.

News programs reported on the ad, and it contributed to uneasy feelings about Goldwater. He was furious, and later said the irony was that it was Johnson who escalated the Vietnam War.

Now, more than 40 years later, scare tactics are still with us. A new GOP ad quotes Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda associates as they make threats.

The ad implies that only Republicans are capable of dealing with the terrorist threat. The ad concludes by urging Americans to vote on Nov. 7.