5 Ways to Swift Boat a Presidential Candidate
Yet there are risks to going negative. It can and sometimes does backfire, alienating centrist voters and motivating the opposition, especially if the negative campaign becomes seen as cruel and petty, such as a disastrous ad run by the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in the 1993 Canadian federal election that highlighted a facial disability of Liberal Party candidate Jean Chretien. Backlash to the ad was severe, helping to reduce the governing conservatives to two seats in that election.
Sadly, however, more often than not, the old straw man or red herring argument works well enough to explain its continued use in politics. Free speech trumps false advertising when it comes to public figures, who enjoy weaker protection against false allegations than do average citizens. Swift boating is here to stay. Whom will it sink next?
1. 527 groups
Use a surrogate group, like the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Moveon.org 527 groups, to influence the nomination, election, appointment or defeat of candidates for public office. 527's are tax-exempt organizations unable to donate money directly to elect or defeat a candidate for federal office. What they are allowed to do, though, is say just about anything they want to about a candidate without being subject to regulation by the Federal Election Commission or state elections commissions.2. Push polling
Have a surrogate group -- a group not easily tied to your campaign -- telephone likely voters to ask scandalous questions phrased in a such a way that they imply something negative. It is widely believed that surrogates working for the Bush camp in the 2000 presidential election used push polling to conservative Republican voters in the Deep South to ask them whether they would support John McCain if they knew he had an illegitimate interracial daughter with a black woman. McCain, in fact, has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh, but no matter. Never let the truth stand in the way of a good push polling.3. Target deep-seeded issues
The George H.W. Bush campaign did it in 1988 with Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and William (Willie) Horton, a convicted black man who, while released on a weekend furlough program, committed armed robbery and the rape of a white woman. After the television ad aired, Dukakis, who had previously supported the idea of limited furloughs for people guilty of specific offenses, was forever associated in the minds of television viewers with the image of the murderer and rapist.4. The Daisy Girl
Imply the loss of something sacred if your opponent wins. The Daisy Girl, named after an ad aired only once by the Lyndon B. Johnson campaign during the 1964 presidential election, remains one of the most controversial political ads ever made.The ad features a little girl picking daisies, counting softly to herself as birds sing in the background. An ominous voice is then heard counting down to a missile launch. When the countdown reaches zero, there's a flash, a mushroom cloud, the girl is gone, and a voiceover from Johnson says, "These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die." Another voiceover then says, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."
5. Guilt by association
Also in the 1988 presidential campaign between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, an ad by the Bush campaign featured a line of convicts, leaving and entering a prison through a revolving door, as the narration states that when governor of Massachusetts, Dukakis vetoed mandatory minimum sentencing for drug dealers, that he vetoed the death penalty, and that he gave weekend furloughs to first-degree murderers. The furlough program was actually enacted before Dukakis become governor. As governor, Dukakis abolished it.The narrator goes on to point out that while furloughed, many of the convicts committed crimes including kidnapping and rape, and are still at large. The ad concludes with the phrase: "Now Michael Dukakis says he wants to do for America what he's done for Massachusetts. America can't afford that risk!" The disclaimer at the end indicates the ad was paid for and endorsed by the Bush/Quayle campaign.
TAGS: campaign, presidential, 2008, smear, swiftboat, kerry, bush, TV, advertising, politics, political, republican, democrat
- November 18, 2007
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