If you have paid even the most casual attention to your television this political season, you know things have been ugly. All across the nation campaigns have been running "negative ads" that have appeared solely to discredit their opposition. And while every election cycle has its fair portion of negativity, most political experts and newscasters have been saying that the current crop of ads are some of the worst.

The Associated Press reports that $160 million has been spent on negative ads in this election cycle with only $17 million used for "positive" advertising. That's a ratio of about 10-1 with Republicans spending $87.5 million and Democrats spending $72.6 million. However, independent analysts do claim that the negative edge does go to the Republicans.

Of course, the idea being expressed by these ads is not to, "vote for me," but rather, "don't vote for my opponent". Most would agree that this is not a very inspiring way to rally the troops.

The notion of providing a credible reason for voting for someone has, for a large percentage of this year's campaigns, taken a backseat to sensational, distorted or fictitious claims made by one party about the other.

A few of the more memorable instances of this year's crop include:

• A scantily clad young white woman is being "interviewed" during a television spot for Tennessee's Senatorial race. The ad is an attack on the Democratic nominee, Harold Ford. The woman being interviewed said that she met Mr. Ford at a Playboy party. At the end of the ad, the woman asks Mr. Ford to call her. Due to the fact that Mr. Ford is African-American, the ad was argued to be, at worst a blatant maneuver to rile racist sympathies and at best, a poor use of judgment. Furthermore, the party attended by Mr. Ford was a Superbowl party that was thrown by Playboy where he was one of roughly 3,000 guests. The ad is no longer running.

• An ad that looks like an ad for a phone sex hotline was produced as an attack on Michael Arcuri, the district attorney for Oneida County. The ad charges that Mr. Arcuri phones sex hotlines and makes taxpayers foot the bill because a number to one of those hotlines appeared on Mr. Arcuri's phone records. It was explained that the call lasted less than a minute and that an aid had merely misdialed the Department of Criminal Justice Services (whose last 7 digits do match with the "naughty" number).

And while both of the aforementioned instances are examples of Republican negative ads, Democrats have provided their own fair share by attempting to tie any Republican to either President Bush and his flagging approval ratings, or to Rep. Mark Foley and his "Page-gate" scandal that may or may not include figures in the GOP leadership.

So how does this affect our local voters? Assemblyman Kevin Cahill (D) feels that negative campaigning is a, "mechanism for voter suppression" and recalls campaigns in his own career where he had to deal with personal attacks. In an interview with the Citizen, a Hudson Valley magazine, Cahill explained that his loss in one election due to negative campaign ads taught him to develop a "rapid response team" to counteract the damage his opponents might try to inflict.

Wawarsing Town Councilman Terry Houck (R) says that, "I feel like people are pretty tired [of negative ads]. I am pretty tired of it. It's pretty discouraging when you see what's going on at the national level. We should be talking about issues." Mr. Houck was happy to see that the race for State Senate between John Bonacic and Susan Zimet had remained above the national mudslinging.

Wawarsing Town Clerk Jane Eck (D) echoed Mr. Houck's remarks saying, "They [negative ads] are atrocious. People should be running on issues not nitpicking each other. It's disgusting."

When asked, a number of people agree with both Mr. Houck and Mrs. Eck. So, why do campaigns do it?

Is it a move made out of panic? Afraid that his campaign doesn't have enough to win on its own merit a politician seeks to destroy the opposition.

Is it an attempt to dissuade voters from going out to the polls? A politician gambles that by disgusting so many possible marginal votes and encouraging them to stay home will work in his favor.

Is it an attempt to gain votes at the last minute by having the voters say, "that's it, he/she has to go."

Perhaps it is some combination of all of these ideas and perhaps there are more. But with so much ostensibly riding on this round of mid-term elections, we will see if any of these gambles pay off.

COMMENTS about this article (1)