Going Dirty the Art of Negative Campaigning - Review

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Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning by David MarkReview by: Leah A. MurrayPolitical Science Quarterly, Vol. 121, No. 4 (Winter, 2006/2007), pp. 732-733Published by: The Academy of Political ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20202791 .

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732 I POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Going Dirty: The Art ofNegative Campaigning byDavid Mark. Lanham,MD, Rowman & LittlefieldPublishers, Inc., 2006. 280pp. $24.95.As we head into themidterm and presidential election seasons of 2006 and2008, we will undoubtedly see many negative campaigns?especially in districts ocated in thepivotal battleground states. InGoing Dirty: The Art ofNegative Campaigning, David Mark examines negative advertising in campaigns and provides a historical context forwhat we may see over the nexttwo election years.

Historically, Mark argues, campaigning has been a process of comparingand contrasting candidates. The modern system of negative campaigning,Mark explains, has its roots in the late nineteenth century, when "candidatesbecame their own advocates [and] rules of decorum demanded at least aslightlyhigher level of rhetoric ... the theory thatundergirds the twentyfirst-century requirement that federal candidates stand by and endorse theirown ads" (p. 24). This is not to say that campaigns did not contain negativecomponents; Mark shows that negative comparisons were often articulated byproxies for the candidates, such as partisan newspapers. In the twentieth century, however, negative campaign messages were handled by the candidatesthemselves. Mark claims that the first "modern negative campaign" occurredin the 1934 California gubernatorial election, when Frank Merriam's campaign not only branded novelist Upton Sinclair a Communist but also wasthe first campaign to employ direct mail. Negative campaigning via televisionwas firstemployed by Lyndon Baines Johnson inhis 1964 presidential runagainst Barry Goldwater, when his famous "Daisy Girl" ad made "Goldwaterhimself ... the focus of the election" (p. 40). Without naming his opponent,Johnson's campaign implied that Goldwater's apparent militancy would result in a nuclear apocalypse. Mark also explains how Jesse Helms's campaigns in North Carolina exemplify themodern form of campaigning: "long,television-driven, negative, and with relatively few personal appearances"(pp. 104-105). Mark also discusses how new developments in negative advertising, such as the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," allow a campaign to hurlinvective while shielding the candidate from any negative association withsuch strategies. Finally, Mark examines how blogs and e-mail make itpossiblefor negative messages to spread much farther than more traditional methodswould allow.

Negative campaigning works, which is why candidates regularly employit.As Mark explains, it is particularly effective when ads focus the electorateon a specific issue. Johnson's Daisy Girl ad brought about a "long series ofCold War-era campaign commercials to focus on a candidate's potentialfor launching a nuclear conflict" (p. 49). After the Cold War removed theSoviet threat, Mark explains, the 2002 Georgia Senate race put terrorismat the center of all modern campaigns. Mark also explains that negative campaigns are effective because they raise money; capitalizing on the flaws of

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an opponent generates more donations than touting a candidate's virtues.Finally, he explains that negative ads are effective in "hammering opponentsbefore most of the electorate even seem[ ] to be seriously paying attentionto politics" (p. 113). In the 1996 presidential race, Bill Clinton and AlGore connected potential Republican candidates toNewt Gingrich.WhenSenator Robert Dole was selected as the nominee, they yoked Gingrichto Dole?even though the two were not necessarily politically tied. In thisway, negative advertisingbegins longbefore thecampaign begins, forcingtheopponent to go on the defensive before he or she can even begin to plan apositive message.While scholars and pundits alike bemoan negative campaigning, Markpoints out that American voters notice when negative comparison ads lapseinto invective, and in those cases, he argues, those ads fail.

Leah A. MurrayWeber StateUniversity

Disability Rights and theAmerican Social Safety Net by JenniferL.Erkulwater. Ithaca, NY, Cornell UniversityPress, 2006. 252 pp. $42.50.How far do social constructionist-oriented policies that focus on individualrights nd inclusiveness advance the social good of the disabled in theUnitedStates? Jennifer L. Erkulwater argues not nearly far enough in her importantand very engaging new book on federal social welfare and disability policy.Since the 1960s,American disability policy has been characterizedby a shiftin orientation from a medical model focused on the welfare state providingadequate social services including ducation, job training, nd income supportto amore libertarian-oriented social model based on socially constructed individual rightsfor the disabled. This social model has included independencefrom public institutions, anti-discrimination regulations and laws such as theAmericans with Disabilities Act, and inclusiveness inAmerican society. Thechange in federal disability orientation was sped up by de-institutionalizationcaused by the Supplemental Security Income program and a shift of the disabled from public institutions to federally funded community care. Communitycare has been decentralized and fragmented among numerous federal, state,and local programs, and this has resulted in an unequal distribution of resources for the disabled. In linewith thisshift ndisability policy orientation,disability advocates throughoutthe 1980s and 1990s also tended to "definecivil rights laws and social welfare programs as incompatible approaches to theproblems of disability ..." (p. 232).Although thisstrategy f advocating individual rights n tandemwith reducing the cost and size of the social welfare state appealed to neo-liberalmarket-oriented politicians inCongress during this period, Erkulwater arguesthat this advocacy approach has stalled positive social change in terms of

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Going Dirty the Art of Negative Campaigning - Review

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