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Thursday: Crazy like a fox?
posted at 2008-04-10 23:58 | Last modified 2008-04-11 07:55
Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue committed political suicide today. Or that’s what most campaign consultants would say, anyway.
Perdue held a presser this morning to announce she’s swearing off negative campaigning. She’s pulling her ubiquitous attack ads against Dem rival Richard Moore, replacing them with “positive” messages about her stands on issues that matter to voters. Her new ad announcing that decision is here.
Both Moore and Perdue have sunk tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of dollars into an escalating negative ad battle that started in earnest Easter weekend. (On the very remote chance you missed them all, Dome still has the ads available here.)
What if?
There are three things everyone knows about political attack ads.
- Voters say they don’t like them.
- They work.
- They can't go unanswered.
Moore’s people say Perdue's gambit is predictable. Pointing to poll numbers that suggest their guy is catching up, they say Perdue’s announcement is a desperation move by a candidate who’s losing her lead. Carter Wrenn thinks so, too.
I’m not so sure. Seems like a candidate who’s slipping in the polls would turn to his or her consultants -- and five gets you ten her consultants weren’t backing this move. Perdue joked this morning that "Saul Schorr is probably off crying somewhere” after she canned a slate of “really good” negative ads he produced.
Why try it?
Call it the Obama factor. You have two Dem presidential contenders, both traditional minorities, neither of whom is running ads openly attacking each other. The Republicans, while they had a race, played nice, too. Here in NC, the GOP gubernatorial contenders have kept it positive as well. See a pattern? I think Perdue did, and she’s betting the bank on it.
At this point, there’s no telling who’ll turn out May 6th – but Perdue’s move seems to be aimed at the folks who might reasonably be expected to show up for Obama. They include first-timers, non-traditional voters, unaffiliated and crossover voters – generally speaking, people who don’t like politics as usual. She’s positioning herself in a way that allows her to harness that energy as the gubernatorial change candidate, but without alienating old friends and party faithful.
If she can follow through with the message, it might just pay off.
Listen in:
Perdue says she’s over it, and her supporters are, too. (I can vouch: I was at a campaign event with her last night, and I overheard more than one supporter tell her to knock off the negative campaigning.)
Listen Now!
She says she’s asking her supporters not to run negative 527 ads on her behalf.
Listen Now!
And she says she didn’t poll this decision before she acted on it.
Listen Now!
No, thanks
Meantime, Moore’s campaign is sticking with the tried and true. Here’s the official response from his campaign chief, Jay Reiff:
“This is no surprise given that the Perdue campaign had to pull their last negative ad because it was untrue and even her "positive" TV ad has been called misleading by the Associated Press. How about a pledge to tell the truth?...”
When I pressed for a yes-or-no on attack ads, I got this from Reiff:
“We pledge to run truthful ads. We believe a candidate’s record is fair game for debate.”
Well, he’s right - it is. And that’s what primaries have traditionally been good at: vetting and seasoning candidates for (one assumes) a far nastier bipartisan contest. It’s better for a party to run a candidate who’s already survived the gauntlet before they hit the general-election spotlight.
Unless, of course, the eventual nominee emerges from the fray mortally wounded - and I can’t help but wonder whether the Dems are worried about that.
Recent tracking numbers show GOP contender Pat McCrory widening his lead. He’s popular among right-leaning independents and moderates, and he has an enormous built-in base of support in Charlotte. Add two Dems seemingly bent on mutually assured destruction, and you’ve got all the makings of an upset.
Comments? Drop me a line.
