22 August 2008

Uncommon Commentary #23: Why Is There So Much Negativity About Negativity?

Voters are airing their familiar gripe about the conducting of "negative" political campaigns. I, too, would prefer that those who stand for public office emphasize their own merits rather than denigrate the competition; it seems to me, though, that the "negativity" phenomenon has resulted naturally from the fact that so many political candidacies nowadays are negative, that is, the politician in question has more negative than positive traits, and so his opponent tries to capitalize these drawbacks. (If the shortcomings of him who is doing this capitalizing outweigh his good qualities, he has even more reason to focus the public's attention on the other person.) When we see or hear a paid political announcement that "attacks" the other major nominee, therefore, we shouldn't complain about or dismiss its claim cynically, but instead endeavor to determine whether it's justified.
Above all else, this applies to McCain-versus-Obama. People won't learn anything that they need to know about the Democratic nominee from the mainstream of our left-wing news media, whose "coverage" of this man's quest for the presidency has been perhaps the most blatantly and outrageously biased in the history of countries whose elections can generally be considered free; they can learn it only from the Republican foe and his allies. How can anyone who's pitted against so problematic a candidate as Barack Obama not run a "negative campaign?"