They’ve already started. It’s only a matter of weeks before our televisions are consumed with mini horror films — intense music, shadowy and unflattering portraits of politicians, with flashy displays of legal documents and speeches taken out of context.
Bernie Sanders vowed to rise above this kind of mud-slinging poli-tickan. Tad Devine, a senior advisor, told “The Hill” last week their campaign would never run a negative ad against Clinton.
According to Devine, that’s “just not how Sanders is wired.” Sanders isn’t prone to the personal political attack, like other candidates, aka Donald Trump, have so flagrantly exhibited already in the 2016 race.
But what does this promise really mean?
Journalism Professor Ferrel Guillory said this decision might not be in Sanders’ best interests. He said there are two kinds of negative political ad: 1) the mud-slinging out-and-out assault and 2) ads that seek to draw distinction between candidates to provoke thoughtful debate.
Guillory said that the assaulting ads aren’t as helpful. But the second kind of ad, pointing out issues and distinguishing oneself from the other candidates, can be productive and beneficial.
“You don’t want political campaigns in this nation just filled with falsehoods and smears, and total crassness, but at the same time, I think you need to recognize politics in America is a contact sport — and a contact sport having to do with the clash of ideas, political positions, and the clash of people with grand ambitions,” he said.
This attack-ad campaigning seems pretty endemic to the United States. I asked my Facebook friends what they thought of negative political ads, and a friend and former UNC exchange student, Claire Joussot, said:
“It would be illegal to do such thing in France. I don't know for other countries but I think it's a very American thing — no offense in that comment. It goes well with the importance given to one's image in US politics.”
Maybe it’s still about image. Ironically, Sanders may be using a different means to reach the same end — to distinguish himself — by not running negative political ads.
Khaled Jaouhari, president of the UNC Young Democrats, said, “Negative political ads are counter-productive in my opinion; however, sometimes when someone throws a rock at you, your first inclination is to retaliate and throw something back at them. An individual, or in this case a politician, who stays above the fray can project himself/herself as presidential and unpretentious.”
This “presidential and unpretentious” image could be just what Sanders needs to distinguish himself from Clinton. An added bonus — Sanders' decision not to run attack ads is cost-free.
Negative ads and mud slinging will certainly be part of the 2016 election. They’ve been part of American presidential campaign season since 1964, when Lyndon B. Johnson ran his first attack ad. The ad juxtaposed a child plucking flower petals with a terrifying mushrooming nuclear bomb explosion.
“The stakes are too high for you to stay home,” the narrator says in a tone that must’ve scared the britches off baby boomers.
Johnson won the election, and those words changed American politics — and ruined our ability to enjoy a commercial break — for the past 51 years. Unless perhaps, Sanders’ campaign revives the dignity that existed before LBJ dropped the bomb.
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