Keeping the Run for Elective Office Positive

As this election cycle begins with people announcing their intention to seek elective office, names will be surfacing and rumors will abound as to the people who support certain candidates or positions they take.

On the national political scene, there is much talk about negative ads that are running against candidates. Usually, on the federal level, the candidates do not become involved in negative attacks on another candidate, although that usual practice does change from time to time depending on the candidates involved. Normally, there is a group of political activists who form a political action committee in support of certain candidates and they function separately from the formal organization of a candidate. We have seen these so-called “Super Pacs” used in the last several presidential elections to run negative ads.

In the heat of a campaign season, the zealot, passionate supporters of any candidate can sometime believe that every voter needs to know that the opposing candidate is a “low-down dirty dog”, and it is their job to expose the candidate to the voters.

While people normally say they don’t like negative ads in political campaigns, at the end of the day they seem to work. The reason they are being used more often is because negative attacks have a way of sticking to a candidate. It is an unfortunate axiom that bad news travels faster than good, and that people would rather be informed about the bad than the good. We can just face the reality that negative attacks work and that is why they are used often.

I don’t like negative ads. When someone is speaking in a political forum and decides they are going to unleash a negative attack on the other candidates, I take note of that conduct and place the attacking candidate at the top of my “not-voting-for-you” list. I want to hear a candidate tell me their positions, their plans and the qualifications they have as to why they are seeking an elective office. I can find out after listening to all the candidates which one best fits my concept of the person for which I will place my vote.

There is no place, in my mind, to use “ad hominem” attacks on others. An ad hominem method of expressing a person’s viewpoint is an appeal to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect. To further explain the use of the ad hominem method is to know that it is marked by an attack on an opponent’s character rather than to offer an intellectual response to the other candidate’s position. Just like a referee in a boxing match warns the fighters when it is said, “Go to your corners, come out fighting but keep it clean,” that is what I am looking for in a political campaign. From where I stand, as I listen to candidates speak and read their ads, I will pay attention to those who fight but keep it clean.

Will you vote for a candidate that uses negative attacks against their opponent? Tell us in comments.