The Power of Negative Advertising

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann have written an article on the benefits of negative advertising, coincidentally, just as McCain and Palin are starting to go negative in a big way.

Some political consultants, including most Republicans, treat positive advertisements like the overture before the show begins, marking time until the real campaign starts and the negatives begin to hit. That's wrong. Positive ads that explain a program, develop a theme, or spell out hot-button issues are still the most effective communications in politics. But negative ads work and have their place. They are how the voters find truth in a morass of claims and counterclaims. With much of the media oriented toward the left or the right, negative ads are often the only way voters can penetrate the claims of the various campaigns and get the facts.

Yeah - negative ads are the only way voters can get the facts. For example media outlets, like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, have repeatedly examined Obama's connection to William Ayres and found little of note. But Palin and McCain know there is something there. So negative ads can highlight this supposed connection, and in that way bring the "facts" to the voters.

I think maybe Morris is using fact in a different way than I am using it.