Andrew Sullivan comments on Who's Been More Negative?:
"Looking at the tone of all of McCain’s advertising from June 4 to October 4, we found that 47 percent of the McCain spots were negative (completely focused on Obama), 26 percent were positive (completely focusing on his own personal story or on his issues or proposals) and 27 percent were contrast ads (a mix of positive and negative messages). What about Obama? Our analysis reveals that 39 percent of all general election Obama TV ads have been positive (solely about his record, positions or personal story), 35 percent have been negative (solely focused on McCain) and 25 percent have been contrast ads - mixing a bit of both. So, on a proportional basis, the McCain campaign is and has been more negative than Obama."
So on positive-negative-mixed it's:
McCain 26-47-27
Obama 39-35-25
So about a 10% swing between them of positive to negative. Not nearly as much as I expected. Not living in a competitive state I don't see the TV ads (let alone having a TiVo) but I just see a few in the blogosphere. Yep, a skewed view.
5 comments:
I haven't seen any attempts to distinguish between "negative issue" ads (e.g. McCain's healthcare policy is bad for these reasons") and "negative character" ads (e.g. Obama and Britney Spears) - I think it is an important distinction.
Bill Moyer's interviewed an academic who studied campaigns over history. She didn't like the term negative. She was more concerned with attack ads vs ads that compared the differences between the candidates.
BTW Katie was with me when I posted my last comment. I gave her a quick lesson in blogs and commenting (she knows about our family blog.)
And I explained that Castro is the ruler of Cuba, not a friendly ghost :-)
I just found that blog of yours Paul (wasn't hard). I'm sorry....YULE LOG FLUME? Jeez, we of the Jewish faith might as well have a Kiddush Cup Ride.
Well maybe he's soon to be a friendly ghost. :)
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