By Bob Plain in
RI Future.org
“In this election cycle, things are already so
negative, it’s hard to imagine that there’s much room for them to get more
negative between now and November,” election expert Stephen Farnsworth told Gene Emery of the
Projo’s Politifact team as
he investigated the veracity of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s assertion that
negative advertisements have increased since the Citizens United decision.
It’s
true, Emery discovered. Campaign advertising has gotten more negative since the
Supreme Court allowed anonymous donors to pretty much put whatever they want on
TV without having to stand behind the statement.
In
fact, it’s exponentially true.
In
2008, from January through April just over 9 percent of presidential campaign
TV ads were negative. In 2012, during the same time period, the percentage
ballooned to 70 percent. That’s a 678 percent increase, the result of which
means almost three quarters of all TV commercials about the presidential campaign
are beating up on the opponent!
Emery
is right to point out that the increase in negative campaigning isn’t soley the
result of the Citizens United decision (though he’s wrong, I think, to suggest
that Whitehouse indicated that was the case). Unlike SuperPACS candidates
still have to stand behind the messages they broadcast on TV (though I’m sure
Justice Scalia is salivated at the opportunity to give them the right to smear
their competition anonymously) and their TV ads are getting more negative too, though
they only got more negative by a paltry 489 percent.
During
the first four months of the 2008 campaign, 9 percent of candidates’ TV ads
were negative, just like the overall number from the other study Emery cited.
This year, they jumped up to 53 percent.
Who
knows … maybe we’ve all just run out of good things to say.
