<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601811.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601811.html</a>
My guess is that partisans will be outraged at the negative ads directed at “their side” while smugly indifferent to those attacking “the other side.” I can say that here in California, where most of the advertising is directed at ballot initiatives, a negative ad tends to make me want to vote whichever way the ad proponents oppose - and I don’t think I’m alone.</p>
<p>some ads don’t even talk about the “candidate” who the ad is for, some hide the party affliliation, </p>
<p>i read the the majority, a large majority of one parties ads are negative and attacking</p>
<p>I figure if you don’t have anything good to say about yourslef, then you go into attack mode, very telling</p>
<p>Being from Santorum - Casey, Weldon - Sestak territory I can say that in my neck of the woods it has gotten very, very ugly. There is no substance to the commercials on either side.</p>
<p>Being from the Healy/Patrick territory, I can vouch for a lotttttta ugliness, more from one side than the other.</p>
<p>who are the companies making these ads, and I am sick of the excuse</p>
<p>“well, its not OUR ad, but an independent group” so we have no say</p>
<p>whooey</p>
<p>Oh my lord, Allmusic – every time an ad for either Healy or Patrick comes on (and there’s on one as I type!), I just want to turn off the TV. How many days until the election?</p>
<p>Half of the ads make a big deal out of the fact that Patrick, a lawyer, <em>gasp</em> defended people accused of crimes. The other half dig up seemingly every unflattering photo of Kerry Healy ever taken. </p>
<p>The “wine in non-liquor stores” ad series is pretty obnoxious, too.</p>
<p>We are counting down the days until Election Day here in our house. Minus 9 and counting, until we will finally be rid of all that mean-spirited braying from both sides. We actually hurry to hit the mute button the minute of the attack ads enters the room. A lot of the allegations in these smear jobs are simply an affront to voter intelligence. I for one, would like to see an actual law that would prohibit attack ads. I’m only interested in hearing what a candidate will do to correct our current problems. Show me your plan, Mr/Ms. Candidate. Convince me you’re the best person for the job. Don’t tell me the only reason I should vote for you because I’m voting against your opponent.</p>
<p>The problem is that attack ads have worked, historically. And a thoughtful discussion of competing policy stands doesn’t. As voters, we only have ourselves to blame. As I mentioned, here in California, we’re generally spared the worst of it - our congressional seats have been gerrymandered into one party fortresses, and the national party nominations are over by the time we have our primary election in presidential election years. We did have a pretty spirited primary fight between two dems for the governor nomination this spring, though. I can honestly say I was like a ping pong ball, reacting against whichever candidate’s commercial was on the air at the time, until I tuned them all out and decided to hold my nose and vote. </p>
<p>Still, some of the ads referreed to in this story were shown on TV last night - You have to wonder if the smarmy nastiness they sink to actually works.</p>
<p>I join Elleneast. We have four competitive congressional races, a competitive Senate race, and a governor’s race in this market. Half the ads on TV are political, and at this point at least 3/4 of them are negative.</p>
<p>I would like to say “a pox on both your houses”, but there is a clear worst offender – the Republican National Committee. It is responsible for all of the negative ads in the congressional campaigns, and they are all versions of the same thing: a generic attack on Democrats for opposing “making the tax cuts permanent” and for supporting “amnesty” for illegal aliens. There is almost no candidate-specific information, and 90% of the copy is the same regardless of which candidate is being attacked (which makes things even more tiresome). Opposing making the tax cuts permanent = supporting the largest tax increase in history! Families with children will pay $3,000 more! Married couples will pay $2,000 more! Even SENIORS (!) will pay more! And some families will even have to pay a DEATH TAX when a parent dies! (Yeah, just like now, families with over $5 million net worth . . . ) Of course, it’s fair to tag Democrats with wanting to roll back tax cuts, but this is lurid, misleading, and lots of double-counting. The immigration bill “gives aliens Social Security credit for time they were here illegally!” (and paid into the system, of course, but the ads don’t mention that). They are very cheesy. The DNCC is not similarly visible at all.</p>
<p>Santorum had a series of even worse attack ads, showing actors representing Casey supporters playing poker amid clouds of cigar smoke in a jail cell. He pulled that because it was (deservedly) blowing up in his face.</p>
<p>In the congressional campaigns, the Democratic attack ads tend, of course, to focus on the Republican incumbent’s support of the President (which is generally fair), although Jim Gerlach is accused in one ad of “voting against a bill that would have provided body armor for the troops”. I am sure that’s unfair.</p>
<p>Could someone please explain to me why <em>ANY</em> of this is even worth discussing? Hasn’t this been going on forever? Is it really that surprising? I don’t get this thread at all, unless you just feel like venting or something…</p>
<p>its definitely vicious in connecticut these days. the tv ads are out of control.</p>