Slinging mud never wins votes, it just depresses votes for your opponent.

This means that every time you sway someone with a negative attack post you're not getting someone to support your candidate, you end up turning them away from the entire process. Many times it turns them away from voting in the general election as well as the primaries because "they're all crooks". How does that help any of us?

I just wanted to get that truism out there to remind some of the less aware members of the DU community. Support your candidate to the fullest, but stop with the disgusting attacks and slurs. Remember, even the worst Democrat beats the best republican - no contest.

and very true.

Maybe if I had titled it "Hillary in bed with Castro" or "Obama really is Osama" some others would have looked in. I guess most people here really do want to spread the hatred.

:shrug:

That way, we ALL get shot :crazy:

That's the sound of everyone firing at once. At least thats what I hear in my mind when reading this forum lately.

Thanks for helping kick a dying thread NNNS. Too bad its so unpopular to be supportive.

behold, the wonder of modern medicine

the failed republickin ideals, attack them and not stop. Thats how you win.

and probably another 5K that lurk. So I hope the election doesn't hang in the balance, by that narrow of a margin.

I doubt this board, or it's members will be the deciding factor in any election. :eyes:

Point taken though.

While it really is just a handful of hacks doing this, they are doing it everywhere and they're just a portion of the total number of people who do it during the primaries. However, think of all the people who come to "Democratic" Underground and find this kind of thing going on. I think it probably turns quite a few off, both from DU and the electoral process.

We just shouldn't be slandering each other's candidates. It hurts us all in the end.

and pointing out facts though. But when presented with facts, some supporters say they are slander, when in fact, they are neither slander, which is spoken word, or libel, which is written word.

But when discussing things in an online forum I usually think of it more as verbal conversation than written, although I'm clearly wrong about that.

As for *ahem* libelous comments, I think that if these weren't public figures they'd have fantastic chances of winning some lawsuits from this site.

;-)

If we are each doing our job, we should be influencing a hundred people each, and those people are influencing others. That means we can influence 10 million people, and elections can swing on that number. The better we communicate our message, the more likely people are to spread it.

Thank you.

just say fuck it and stay home.

n/t

During the last primary cycle, the unspoken pledge was to not attack each other, attack Bush.

Now it seems we attack each other, not the Republicans.

The favorite target in '04 was Dean and the "Deaniacs", but most people agreed that none of the other candidates were baby eaters or Mac users (just kidding). This time it seems like some people would rather huckabee win than a Democrat other than their favorite. That's a big problem to me.

the circular firing squad was alive and well up until the General Election. Don't kid yourself.

Abstract

The character of elections critically affects the dialogue of democracy. This article examines that dialogue in 143 U.S. Senate elections, 1988-1998, in which an incumbent sought reelection. We go beyond previous research on the impact of campaign spending to focus on the character of the contest itself, particularly the impact of negative campaigning. Campaign strategies are endogenous to the campaign itself, requiring plausible instruments and two-stage statistical techniques to produce reliable estimates. Our analyses combine information on the relative "tone" of U.S. Senate campaigns with an original aggregate data set and ANES survey data. We ask a simple question: how effective is negative campaigning in helping to get candidates elected? Our results provide no straightforward answer. Generally speaking, but dependent on the opponent's strategy, negative campaigning is relatively effective for challengers, while positive campaigning is more effective for incumbents. Overall, our results do provide clear evidence that the campaign "matters."
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0092-5853(200201)46%3A1%3C47%3AEONCIU%3E2.0.CO;2-J

Because negative political advertising that identifies the sponsor and the target hurts both candidates, when a candidate uses such advertising, it would be better not to identify the sponsor. However, it is normally required that by law the sponsor be identified. Garramone also pointed this out and suggested that "independent political action committees sponsoring negative advertising offer the candidates they help this anonymity advantage. Independent sponsors may contribute the additional benefit of greater credibility."72
http://www.scripps.ohiou.edu/wjmcr/vol02/2-1a-B.htm#results

Which is why we have swiftboat attacks.

Relying on two large and high statistically powered field experiments, we find little evidence that exposure to a negatively framed message either reduces turnout or that it is especially effective at persuading individuals to support the sponsor of the message. It is important to note that we find a lack of evidence for such effects among undecided and politically unattached voters, which is a subpopulation among whom negative campaign messages are supposed to be particularly pernicious (Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1995: 111-12).
http://americandemocracy.nd.edu/working_papers/documents/Arceneaux_Nickerson_Negative_Messages.pdf

Am I missing something here?

The one that most clearly agrees with the conventional wisdom that negative campaigning is bad for voter turnout for both candidates also says that if the candidate using mudslinging distances himself from the negative campaign (as in the swiftboat attacks) that effect goes away. The third study didn't fine any voter suppression effect.

If it doesn't work to a candidates advantage, why do they keep using it?

I'm saying they don't work in primaries because they suppress the very voters we need in the general election. So while your candidate may win the primaries, they hurt themselves for the general. I think all of the studies bolster that argument.

Which is all that I am saying. The conventional wisdom that it suppresses voter turnout for either side is in dispute. All the studies do noy bolster your argument, the studies are all over the place.

Anyhow, I hate negative campaigns mostly because in the general election, without the support ot the bullshit media system stenographic echo chamber, our side's attacks are not any where nearly as effective as their side's. In addition, while they manage to stay on point and stick to the script, our stalwart Democrats tend to examine each new attack launched at them as if it were credible news worthy of objective evaluation, with a fair number actually buying into the attack itself, and the target of the attack frequently deciding to apologize for whatever it was he or she was accused of doing. In other words, 20 years into the modern age of mudslinging (although perhaps this started earlier with LBJ's flower/child/nuke ad against Goldwater) we still suck at it.

Happy New Year.

Except when attacking other Dems. For some reason we seem to be experts at the low blow when it comes to hitting our own. Sad huh?

Anyway, happy New Year to you, too. Let's hope its a good one....

If nothing else it makes a change from "OBAMA GAVE MY MOTHER A WEDGIE!" threads.

But I have decided not to vote for candidates based on negative ads, and since the choice of who to vote for is usually limited, I suppose I've voted for the person who ran the ads.

As long as the tone is simply factual, even if it's a bit into hyperbole, I'm ok with it. Such ads point out issues that I wouldn't have thought about, or facts I didn't know. Sometimes the "facts" are wrong (and yes, I typically check them out, if I find that I think they're important).

Purely positive campaigning sucks: Nobody has any flaws, unless you dig into their background yourself (and look in the right places), they just have gaps--does not taking a public stance on an issue mean you're against what I think should be done, or does it just mean that it's not your top issue? When you say you did X, Y, and Z ... did you, really, or were you a figurehead or silent non-active partner? And when you say as a result of your actions X 'improved', is that a 0.001% improvement that's not worth mentioning, but still counts as "improvement", or was it a 100% improvement? (And who measured it?)

Same with debates: Candidates should go after each other's positions and records. But they should not be gratuituously insulting or resort to innuendo.

When a campaign decides to go negative that's on them. They have made a tactical decision and if it works, it works, but when DUers do the same thing in the name of their favorite candidate or just to try and hurt a candidate they don't like, it really makes this forum less of a good place for Democrats. I remember when DU first started up in 2001 when we were all still shell-shocked from bush's* first theft. There was a sense of comraderie that made DU more of an oasis in a hellish desert than just a forum. I've had my ups and downs with the place over the last six and a half years but it still hurts to see a few people come in and trash the place with their foul comments and rude behavior.

I think its time we all got back to working toward the goals we talked about then instead of seeing how well we can offend and hurt other people.

Personally I let the candidates run their campaigns, I tend not to campaign for them, at least among the converted.

No, strike that. I don't campaign for them among the "sinners", either.

It helps not having a candidate. No primary in this state till March, no reason to decide on one until March. Yes, I like procrastination.

And that includes those supporting my candidate, Edwards. In fact, I think if you look, you'll find that its the same few Clinton supporters posting the same crap over and over that has you thinking they're the worst but Edwards, Obama, Biden, Richardson and Kucinich all have their hacks in here creating anger and confusion. These posters either have no idea how disgusting their actions are or just don't care, but either way they're not winning any converts to their candidate.

Oddly enough, the only supporters I haven't noticed attacking everyone else are the Dodd supporters. Is that because they're inherently more mature or there just aren't enough here to make a splash? :shrug:

that although my head says Dem candidate X would be better than a CON, the supporters are so awful, I might consider NOT voting at all. They are vicious and snarky.

Of course in the end I will vote, I'll hold my nose like I did in 2004.

Which is why I have not changed my avatar for my candidate, I'm staying out of the fray :hi: