And the Winner Is: The GOP

The ads this year are worse than ever. Both sides aren't to blame.

That is the view expressed in this Slate article by Jacob Weisberg, Poisoned Politics. Calling the ads an "effusion of pure political poison," Weisberg reviews the list of worst campaign ads this season. He notes:

Apologists for negative advertising often contend that, unpleasant or not, it conveys information and policy content. But it's hard to see what ads like these contribute to anyone's knowledge, beyond the notion that politicians are vermin and scum.

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The other familiar excuse for negative advertising is that "everybody does it." Newspaper stories about attack commercials usually include a sampling of harsh Democratic spots in an effort to appear evenhanded. But there's really no comparison between what the two parties and their respective surrogates are doing. According to factcheck.org, a respected site that reviews the accuracy of various ads, "the National Republican Campaign Committee's work stands out this year for the sheer volume of assaults on the personal character of Democratic House challengers." Negative Democratic ads tie Republican candidates to President Bush, and to the Iraq war, or accuse them of being in the tank for the oil or pharmaceutical industries. But Democratic ads do not charge that their opponents "prey on our children"—even though one recently resigned following accusations that he did precisely that. One can only imagine the ads Republicans would have made this year if Mark Foley had happened to be a Democrat.

In fact, the form, style, and content of the contemporary attack ad are a specifically conservative contribution to American politics. Republicans have developed most of the techniques, vocabulary, and symbolism at work in these spots over the last couple of decades. Some of the motifs go back to Nixon and Spiro Agnew, but you can trace most of the elements back to the presidential campaign Lee Atwater ran for George H.W. Bush in 1988, best remembered for the Willie Horton ad and the charge that Michael Dukakis was a "card-carrying member of the ACLU." What's different in this election is simply the ubiquity of the conservative calumny and, in some cases, the aggressiveness of the Democratic response. Spreading hatred and poisonous lies about one's opponent has become an ordinary and almost accepted part of running for office.

It shouldn't be. There may be no cure for dishonest attack advertising that isn't worse than the disease. But that doesn't mean that voters shouldn't be offended or that they should fail to react when politicians treat them as docile bigots. Republicans deserve to get walloped next week for this, if for nothing else.

(For a great spoof of the GOP ads, see It's Ad Time)

Tags: Politics, Commentary, Election