Negative Campaigning – Can it Backfire?

Two Republican candidates are running for the open seat occupied by Martin Howrylak, who is term limited after three terms. One has more yard signs around Troy and Clawson than the other: Ethan Baker. This is usually a sign of grass roots support since signs must be posted with the permission of the property owner. So there are no signs littering vacant lots, of which there are few in Troy and probably no undeveloped land in Clawson.

The other candidate, Doug Tietz, has bombarded Republican voters with half-page postcards, probably four times as many as Baker. Make one wonder where Tietz is getting the money for the mailings, which pack a punch with a few bullet items on each side of the flyer.

Ethan Baker’s full page postcards look like one of my postcards: many words packed into a small area. We don’t listen to the radio or watch TV very much, so we get our information mostly from mailings. Radio and TV ads are not done very much in local elections. Door to door canvassing by the candidates, flyers and yard signs are pretty much the only avenues.

The Troy Times, delivered free to all residents in the mail each Friday, has quit taking letters to the editor. The Somerset-Gazette is also free and is available at many businesses. The articles are not as well written as the Troy Times and sometimes read like a campaign piece for a candidate or an advertisement for a business. So it doesn’t carry as much clout as the Troy Times, which is more widely read. It carried an article exposing the half-truths in Tietz flyers.

Doug Tietz has sent some of his flyers out with attacks on Baker, saying he is supported by Democrats and Never-Trumpers. One of them is former Clawson mayor, Penny Leubs. She switched parties from Republican to Democrat, possibly because Clawson tends to vote Democrat.

Another Democrat who supports him is Louise Schilling, a former council member. Many liberals hide under the non-partisan requirements of the council until they run for office on the Democrat side, which Schilling did in 2012 as a county commissioner candidate. Tietz has sent flyers with pictures of Baker next to Hillary Clinton and said Baker would raise taxes as State Rep. etc.

Getting endorsements from Democrats as well as Republicans could be a favorable sign that a candidate can work with people across the aisle. The Republican governor of Illinois is likely to lose many votes because he has refused to work with the Democratic Legislature, thereby failing to agree on a budget. So Illinois has seen its credit rating go in the tank.

Former mayor Jeanne Stine wrote a letter to the Troy-Somerset Gazette supporting Baker and decrying the negative campaigning which she says rarely happens in Troy. She must have forgotten the harassment Martin Howrylak got for sending out a letter opposing a ballot proposal with his own money, or the “Crocodile Dundee” flyers attacking him for marrying a “former resident of a Communist country”. Howrylak’s beautiful and gracious wife is the daughter of a former judge in South Vietnam. Her family fled to Australia after the fall of Saigon. So negative campaigning is not new in Troy, but it is rare.

Tietz also accuses Baker of speaking against the ill-fated expensive Troy Trolley free bus service and then voting to keep it. “Let’s give it another year or two” is a lot different from the hypocrisy implied in his accusation. Read the entire article in the Troy-Somerset Gazette for more on the negative campaigning of Doug Tietz. Or check out Baker’s Facebook page or campaign website.

I support Baker partly because I am sick of the distortions and half-truths propagated by Tietz. Baker has run a positive campaign and emphasizes it in his latest flyer (the third, I think). The headline is “We all want to be the light for our great state of Michigan, not the darkness.” Under the sub-heading “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican”, President Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, Baker tackles the accusations obliquely.

Baker writes, “Throughout this Primary campaign, I have never had to disparage my opponent’s history or record because I have felt so strongly about my own. I firmly believe the best candidate is the one that will tell you what he or she is going to do for you as your State Representative, not what his or her opponent will or won’t do. And I have done just that.”

I hope that in this case the negative campaigning will backfire on Tietz, perhaps as an example to others. I had planned to support Tietz because of his principled stand on tax breaks for businesses to locate in Troy (this is unfair to the existing businesses). Then went neutral after hearing the thoughts of someone whose opinion we respect. Finally after about the third negative mailing from Tietz we asked Ethan Baker for one of his yard signs.

Negative campaigning is sadly done so frequently because it is effective. Doubt is created in people’s minds, and many become jaded, thinking that everyone in politics lies. This undermines confidence in our government, of the people, by the people, and for the people. Many think the quote originated in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Follow the link to find out its origin.

Usually both candidates campaign negatively through PACs, sometimes in statements from their own campaigns. Running a positive campaign is difficult because defending against unfair accusations distracts from the positive message a candidate would want to focus on.

We will see what happens in this case. Please join me in voting for Ethan Baker for State Representative after doing your own research into the candidates’ platforms and whether they can actually deliver on their campaign promises (or platitudes as the case might be).

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