Negative campaigning

Negative campaigning is trying to win an election by attacking an opponent rather than emphasizing ones one positive attributes or policies.

There are a number of techniques of negative campaigning, the most open and often the most effective is running advertisements attacking an opponent's personality or record. Common examples would be painting an opponent as soft on criminals, dishonest, corrupt, or a danger to the nation. One of the earliest and most famous such ads is one by the campaign of Lyndon B. Johnson that successfully portrayed Republican Barry Goldwater as threatening nuclear war. These ads are expensive, however, and if not well crafted can produce a backlash as voters dislike any sense of bullying. A disastrous ad was run the Progressive Conservatives in the 1993 Canadian election emphasizing Liberal leader Jean Chrétien's facial disability. The ad was a disaster and the governing Conservatives were reduced to two seats. One common negative campaign is attacking the other side for running a negative campaign.

Dirty tricks are also common in political campaigns these generally involve secretly leaking damaging information to the media. This isolates a candidate from backlash and also does not cost any money. The material must be substantive enough to attract media interest, however, and if the truth is discovered it could severely damage a campaign.

Push polls are telephone calls disguised as polls that are actually attacks. They might ask a question like "How would you react if Candidate A was revealed to beat his wife?", giving the impression that Candidate A might beat his wife. Members of the media and of the opposing party are deliberately not called making these tactics all but invisible and improvable.

Often a campaign will use outside organizations, such as lobby groups, to launch attacks. These can be claimed to be coming from a neutral source and if the allegations turn out not to be true the attacking candidate will not be damaged if the links cannot be proven.

Other dirty tricks include trying to feed an opponent's team false information hoping they will use it and embarrass themselves.

All forms of negative campaigning are risky. If a charge is made that then cannot be substantiated it can destroy a campaign. Since negative campaigning is risky it is usually not done by candidates who feel they are the clear front runner, negative tactics are thus more often used by challengers than incumbents.

Negative campaigning is usually seen in a negative light. It does not focus on substantive issues or policies and rather tends to focus on personality. A demonstrated effect of negative campaigning is that while it motivates the base of support it tends to alienate centrist and undecided voters from the political process reducing voter turnout and radicalizing politics.

A certain amount of negative campaigning exists in almost all elections but in general it is viewed as being most common in American elections. They are less often used and more likely to produce a negative backlash in Canada, Europe and other democracies.

Negative campaigning

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