Gephardt Goes Negative

[Freddie Stubbs]

As I noted in my last post, there are a lot of TV ads from the presidential candidates on TV in Iowa right now. In fact, as the national news media reported recently, the Democratic presidential candidates have spent twice as much in Iowa as in New Hampshire. The main reason is that the field is so big (even with Clark and Lieberman not running in Iowa), and the Iowa race is a lot closer than the one in New Hampshire, where Dean appears to be way ahead.

Something that surprised me: CNN reported that Dean is airing most of his ads (47 percent) outside of the Iowa and New Hampshire media markets. This is a big advantage for Dean (who also has the most money of the candidates at this point). After Iowa (where he looks to finish first or second) and New Hampshire (which he looks to win -- but anything can happen in the next 6-7 weeks), Dean will already have a good base of ads in the February 3 primary states.

Back on Oct. 23, I argued that the first ads deemed by the national news media as "negative" ads weren't really negative at all, but more comparative. Well, the ads in the past week skip the comparisons and go straight for the kill. These are clearly negative ads, and the sponsor is Dick Gephardt.

Clearly, Gephardt is feeling the heat. In the past week, Dean, flush with money from his grassroots contributors, began airing a one-minute biographical ad (most of the candidates' ads are 30-seconds long).

more: http://www.nhpr.org/blogs/penpals2004/archives/000082.php

[loyalsister]

1. These ads could backfire

It sounds like Dean has based his strategy on the fact that many voters hate negative ads. In 2002 I remember being very frustrated by people who told me they were going to vote Green because "Jean Carnahan went negative." She never did. She only made factual comparisons. If many Iowa voters respond similarly, Gep could be really disapointed with the results of this expenditure.