Unprecedented Negativity of the Bush Reelection Campaign

Negativity is pretty natural in political campaigns. There’s nothing inherently wrong with pointing out problems in a rival candidate - but it is a problem when negativity takes over, as it seems to be doing with President Bush’s reelection campaign. It’s being called the most negative campaign in history.

Dana Milbank writes for MSNBC:

Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising.

Three-quarters of the ads aired by Bush's campaign have been attacks on Kerry. Bush so far has aired 49,050 negative ads in the top 100 markets, or 75 percent of his advertising. Kerry has run 13,336 negative ads -- or 27 percent of his total. The figures were compiled by The Washington Post using data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group of the top 100 U.S. markets. Both campaigns said the figures are accurate.

"There is more attack now on the Bush side against Kerry than you've historically had in the general-election period against either candidate," said University of Pennsylvania professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an authority on political communication. "This is a very high level of attack, particularly for an incumbent." ... Bush has outdone Kerry in the number of untruths, in part because Bush has leveled so many specific charges (and Kerry has such a lengthy voting record), but also because Kerry has learned from the troubles caused by Al Gore's misstatements in 2000. "The balance of misleading claims tips to Bush," Jamieson said, "in part because the Kerry team has been more careful."

Josh Marshall comments:

[I]f you'd like a more immediate and tangible read on the sorts of campaigns the two are running, stop by the campaign sites of President Bush and John Kerry. Now, look at how often, candidate A's face appears on the front page of candidate B's website, and vice versa. For instance, as of the early morning hours of Monday, John Kerry's face appears 6 times on the front of the Kerry website, while President Bush's face appears not once. On Bush's website, Kerry's face appears 4 times. Bush's face, not once.

[T]he Bush campaign lies with impunity because even in the rare instance when caught red-handed in a front page piece in the Post, they can still be confident that the blow will be cushioned by plenty of paraphrastic padding, such as the Post's description of the Bush campaign's lies as "wrong, or at least highly misleading" or the "liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts." In other words, 'working the refs' pays off.

It looks like this will be a very interesting campaign season. I wonder if such negativity will pay off in the end?

Read More:

• Religious Right