In the 1964 campaign for the Presidency, with the South beginning its swift shift Right, incumbent Lyndon Johnson faced a genuine threat to the Oval Office from “Mr. Conservative” himself, Barry Goldwater. Having already tried to paint Goldwater as an unstable man of questionable mental health, Johnson and the Democratic National Committee went one step further on September 7, 1964 when they aired the now-infamous campaign advertisement known as the Daisy spot, in which footage of a little girl pulling petals from a flower is followed by a nuclear countdown and subsequent blast, mushroom clouds and all. On its surface, the ad is almost indefensible. Seen today, the ad echoes the fear-mongering tactics used in the wake of 9/11, and few would argue in the ad’s defense.
But that is exactly what Vanderbilt University’s John G. Geer does in his surprisingly readable evaluation of negative television ads in Presidential campaigns with the book In Defense of Negativity (University of Chicago Press). It is odd that a man as genial and sarcastic as Geer (he is more likely to begin his political science classes with a stark assessment of his Tennessee Titans than with a mention of John Stuart Mill or Francis Fukuyama) could devote so much of his attention to the highly despised world of negative campaign advertisements. But the result is an insightful and thorough assessment of an inventory of Presidential campaigning tactics since 1960 and the dialog they have incited.
His efforts were rewarded this year with Harvard University’s prestigious Goldsmith Award, giving Geer even more positive news in a career that has already included a teaching assignment alongside Roy Neel, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton, and current Chief of Staff to Al Gore, as well as an ongoing tenure as Editor of The Journal of Politics. When I spoke to Geer, he sounded as happy as I remember him being when, years ago, I attended his popular lectures. There was no doubt he was feeling confident in his undefeated Titans. But he put his smiles aside when discussing his latest book, and his advice to those attempting to promote a more educated political public was simple: try a little negativity.
DAILY SNOOZE: You open In Defense of Negativity with a quote from former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who equates negative advertising in political campaigns to crack cocaine. What drew you to this perceived despicable topic?
JOHN GEER: I enjoyed reading about negative ads and thinking about them. In the mid-‘90s, or so, some work came out, specifically a book called Going Negative [full title: Going Negative: How Political Ads Shrink and Polarize the Electorate, by Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar] that raised all these horrible concerns about negative advertising. It would demobilize the electorate, it was polarizing us, and disenfranchising the less informed, and all these terrible implications. And I just didn’t buy it. I thought that doesn’t make sense. We need that kind of information. We need the good and the bad. So I just started thinking about it. And then, I had, for a completely different project, been collecting and analyzing ads, not with the intent of studying negative or positive ads, but with the intent of looking at all ads and trying to get a sense of how they affect voters. But a lot of other people have studied that, and I moved away from it, and I just got fascinated with the negative side of stuff because it was completely underappreciated, and democracies require criticism. My own academic career benefited a lot from the negativity of others. You don’t necessarily think of it as such, but you need this discussion, so I just started thinking more and more and realizing that people are missing an important part of the democratic process by thinking that we all have to hold hands and pray for world peace. That’s all fine, but sometimes there are real disagreements.
And [the third Presidential] debate was a good example. Those guys disagreed on tax policy, and I think that exchange was probably more informative than just two candidates speaking directly into the camera, saying only what they individually think. You want to try to vet each person’s ideas. So I just continued to work at it, and I realized that the way attack ads work versus positive ads, there’s a different dynamic going on, so I kind of started working on a little theory, if you will. And the data were just backing it up to a consistent level, which, you know, doesn’t always happen. And then I wrote the book with the intent of trying to reach not just the academic community, but a broader set of potential, what you might call policy elites or whatever. So it’s not super-technical, and it’s not well-written by any sort of journalistic standard, but I tried to make it at least digestible to people who are at least interested in, but not necessarily practicing political science.
DS: You say democracy requires negativity, and you use the Declaration of Independence as an example. To the casual observer, how would you connect the Declaration to, say, Hillary Clinton’s 3am ad, or Lyndon Johnson’s infamous Daisy spot?
JG: My broader point is that if you really want to change something you have to raise doubts about the status quo. You have to be critical of it. And a lot of people don’t see negativity playing any positive role. They see only a destructive role. And whether you’re talking about political ads or the context of the Declaration of Independence – obviously the Declaration of Independence is a great document. I am in no way, shape, or form trying to diminish it. My point is that the founders wrote a document that was critical of King George III, and made some pretty harsh accusations of King George III - some of which were accurate, some that were probably exaggerating what was unfolding. But they needed to make the case for why we wanted to break away. So they had to go negative on King George, first.
Every year has its own mechanisms of communication. I mean, if you go back to the era in the early 1800s of pamphlets and look at all the party pamphlets that were being put forth, there were amazingly harsh accusations being leveled. Thomas Jefferson was accused of being the Anti-Christ. That’s pretty tough stuff. And so, when you realize that, you begin to think, wait a second, the country survived it, and, secondly, these kind of attacks do play a role.
And I use that, and also the founding period. When the Constitution was put forward, the Anti-Federalists attacked it very harshly and the Federalists responded with the Bill of Rights. So that’s an example of criticism working. Anybody’s own collegiate career, or even their own career at a particular job, they’ve benefited from criticism. Of course people say negative ads are different, they’re a harsh kind of attack and it stretches the truth. Well, sure, yeah! Absolutely. But people also forget that on the flip side, positive ads are exaggerations as well. So you have this clash of information and you have to have faith the public will adjudicate it.
DS: Can you give a current example?
JG: Take, for instance, the current campaign where a lot of people think McCain has gone too negative. Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think by historical standards he’s gone too negative. But the public certainly thinks he has, and so the public – you’ve got to give people credit for being smart. They’re not fools. And if you really believe they’re fools, then why are we having a democracy to begin with? So you’ve got to have some faith that the public can sort this stuff out, and I always do. If, in fact, candidates cross the line and go too far, it doesn’t mean that all of the sudden the public follows that. It usually means they repulse against it, and it works against the person who put it forward.
Now imagine if Obama used the last three weeks to hammer one theme, with that theme being that John McCain is a coward and not a patriot. Well that would work not at all! Because John McCain is many things, but he is certainly a hero and he is a patriot. So you can’t just make it up. And that’s the real constraining thing about negative ads that people don’t get. It really is an important part of the process. It might not be fun, and it might not make people feel good, but you need this kind of vetting.
And one of the things that I like about the American political system is that we’ve seen Obama in action for almost a year. And people may like him or dislike him, but they’ve learned a lot about him. And I think the public is much more comfortable now than they would have been six months ago supporting Obama. Why? Because they’ve learned more about him. Now, some people don’t like him, and that’s what democracy is all about. But he’s been vetted. He’s faced withering attacks, and if he becomes President, I guarantee you the attacks will not end. They will only accelerate. So if you want to sit behind the big desk, you gotta be prepared to deal with some real criticism.
DS: Could you ever see the public rejecting the outright use of negative ads?
JG: Negative ads are here to stay. Negative ads are going to be a product of a series of contextual variables, if you will. How close the race is tends to generate more negativity. So do the stakes of the race, and this race is pretty important. How far apart the candidates are makes a difference, too. Obama and McCain differ about as much as you can, not only on issues, but also in life stories. McCain is a military guy, a veteran in the sense of being around for a long time, a veteran of Congress, from a generation very different from Obama’s. And obviously he’s white, where Obama is African-American. Obama grew up and spent time in Indonesia. He grew up in Hawaii. He was Harvard-educated. He was a community organizer. He’s 47 years old. He’s 25 years younger than McCain. You know, huge differences between these people on almost all fronts, and that’s going to breed disagreement. That disagreement is important for the public to hear because if you listen to the candidates they’ll tell you they are going to solve the tax problem, they are going to solve the defecit, they are going to solve Wall St., they are going to solve healthcare. Well, they are not going to solve all of those problems. But which one has better ideas? Well, you need a clash of those ideas.
DS: You talk about that from the outset, that news media are always covering the horse race, but rarely the strengths and weaknesses of the horses.
JG: And I think that’s a huge problem, I mean in the sense that I don’t think the news media are fairly or accurately reporting what’s going on in the campaign. And further, they’re giving incentive for ad men and women to create more negative ads because they know that’s what gets covered.
DS: I know you’re confident in the voting public, but does it bother you in some sense that the kind of underlying themes in ads are so misleading that they can fool people?
JG: Well, they could fool people. But don’t forget that these ads are not isolated things. They generate discussion and response ads. So you’ve got the sex education ad [in which McCain attacks Obama], for example. That ad in and of itself, if it was the only piece of information that voters had, yeah, that could be very misleading. But that ad then generates a series of responses from the journalists, the candidate on the other side, and basically suggests that it is pretty beyond the pale and not a very fair claim. So, yeah, any one ad, if it was the only piece of information people had, could be a problem. But it’s part of a larger conversation, I think. One of the things that a negative ad does is it stirs people up to think more about these things. Where as a positive ad – let’s say that a candidate says, “Well, I’m for educated children and clean water.” I mean, that’s kind of a conversation stopper. Who’s opposed to clean water and educating children? So I take that at face value. I truly believe that John McCain wants to educate children. I truly believe John McCain wants to have clean water. What I’m interested in is how he’s going to accomplish those things. And then, what is Obama’s response? And that’s going to require a little back and forth. It’s going to require a little negativity.
DS: What’s next. Are you writing a book with Roy Neel?
JG: Professor Neel and I have been talking about it. I mean, he is busy being Chief of Staff for Al Gore again, so that’s slowed up his work, and mine as well. I’m thinking about writing a follow-up, not to Negativity, per say, but talking about the role the news media play in this process, because I don’t think it’s been talked enough about. Mostly I’ve been interested in a completely different subject: the discrimination that Mitt Romney faced as a Mormon surprised me. And I want to try and get at that more. I’ve been collecting some data with some colleagues that are trying to sort that out with a little bit more precision. I’m not Mormon myself, but I don’t understand why people who are ideologically conservative, who should have much in common with Mormons, think that Mormons are not really true conservatives, or whatever. It’s a puzzle to me, so I’m trying to think a little bit more about that.
This interview will be available soon, in its entirety, on www.stopsmilingonline.com
