He's got a point. The negative attacks aren't turning this around.
We need to refine "negative ads" - - some work, some don't.
I'd say that broadly speaking there are two kinds of negative ads, (1) pure attack ads and (2) victimization ads.
Pure attack ads: Black-assed motherfucker, commie, Jew, pervert, coward, traitor, Muslim
Victimization ads: Liar, hypocrite, Nazi, racist, war criminal
The pure attack ads focus the consumer's anger on the target and fan his hate to the point where he will never be able to vote for the target.
The victimization ads will fail for two reasons, (1) most people don't give a shit about victimizers unless they're one of the victims themselves. For example to call McCain a Nazi might resonate with Jews who hate Nazis for obvious reasons, but the average American doesn't really give a shit, they weren't victimized by Nazis and want to let bygones be bygones. Not only that, but they resent the special-interest nature of victim complaints - - since the average American was never victimized by Nazis, they feel an attempt to portray a candidate as a Nazi is an attempt to enlist them in a dispute in which they are not personally concerned. They could feel that an "American" election is being hijacked by "special interests."
The second reason a "victimization ad" will fail is that it makes the consumer feel abused. In order to hate a racist (as the ad urges) one must stand in the shoes of the racist's victim. The pure attack, by contrast, is a feel-good ad. If you can hate an "inferior" being it means you yourself are seeing through the eyes of the "superior" being, so psychologically you can put yourself in the place of the all-powerful victimizer. To feel resentment TOWARDS a victimizer, one has to put oneself in the same position as the victim class - - weaker, impotent, etc. Thus, most people who are not actual victims of the person being attacked will feel uncomfortable that they are even being asked to feel what a black feels towards a racist, what a Jew feels towards a Nazi. Most Americans would not be comfortable if asked to assume that role and would recoil from any ad that asked them to.
I think we made a big mistake going after Palin as viciously as we did. We shoulda just laughed her off and pretended to feel sorry for her. The fire should have been concentrated on McCain, not as war criminal but as too old and over the hill, too much a part of the problem, too backward looking and no forward vision.
