The guests at the Washington banquet were just getting their dessert when the image of a woman named Sally Nungesser appeared on two enormous video screens. The videotape of Nungesser showed her standing at a podium making strange facial expressions — twitching her eyebrows, crinkling her nose, pursing her lips.
An ominous voice-over began: “Sally Nungesser wants to be insurance commissioner. But she was fired from her job at the Insurance Guaranty Association. Why? Because Sally Nungesser funneled more than half a million dollars in taxpayers’ money to her boyfriend. Then she physically attacked her elderly secretary because the secretary wouldn’t destroy public documents.” Bold letters summed up Sally Nungesser’s life so far: “Lied. Fired. Out of Control. The truth is, we can’t trust Sally Nungesser to be insurance commissioner.” As the lights came up on the smoking rubble of what was once Sally Nungesser, an appreciative silence gave way to prolonged applause from the several hundred people in attendance.
The occasion was the annual awards dinner of the American Association of Political Consultants, the 500-member organization made up of those who earn their keep getting other people elected to office. When a representative of the company that made the Nungesser ad ascended to the stage to accept her Pollie — a faux-crystal flame mounted on a piece of pine that is the political-consultancy equivalent of an Oscar — she didn’t give a rambling speech thanking her hairdresser. Rather, she explained where and how she had found the unflattering footage of Sally Nungesser that went so well with the even more unflattering voice-over. The other ad-makers listened intently, then hooted with appreciation.
Spending an evening with the people who create political advertising is a little like watching someone light a cigarette in a hospital room: The obliviousness to modern decorum is awe-inspiring. Like smoking, negative campaigning is a vice that enlightened opinion has targeted for elimination. Hardly a day passes without the appearance of an op-ed somewhere decrying the incivility in the political process created in part by television ads.
But in the face of this onslaught, political consultants stand firm. Negative advertising is effective: Just ask Sally Nungesser, who finished up her 1995 race for state insurance commissioner of Louisiana with just 28 percent of the vote. (She later resurfaced as an official with the Dole-Kemp campaign.) And, as ad-makers never tire of pointing out, attack ads are every bit as truthful and informative as the positive variety, maybe more so.
Take the Pollie-winning ad that helped Republican Peter Frusetta beat heavily favored Democrat Lily Cervantes for a seat in the California Assembly. The spot opened with Cervantes giving a melodramatic address to a rally of supporters. “The violent young men who abuse guns — I have prosecuted these men,” Cervantes declared, voice resonant with righteous anger. Her assertion was then challenged by the large type that filled the screen: “Lily Cervantes has never prosecuted a felony. She prosecuted 9 serious misdemeanors. She lost 5 of them. She bargained 3, including a repeat spousal abuser. She got one conviction. A K-mart shoplifter.” Negative? Sure. And informative. In fewer than 30 seconds, its creators conveyed a number of pieces of useful information while resoundingly trashing an opponent who obviously deserved it.
Compare this economy of communication with one of the relatively few positive ads to win a Pollie, a 30-second spot produced for Gary Locke during his 1996 bid for governor of Washington state. “Nineteen years ago, my father was shot right here in our family’s grocery store,” says Locke, who is standing before a rack of canned goods. “Fortunately, he lived.” Locke goes on to explain how the experience convinced him that criminals are bad. Yet by the end of the spot, the only person demeaned is Locke himself, who gives voters no reason to choose him over his opponent except for the fact that his father was once shot in a robbery. (Locke did win, though.)
A wickedly negative spot made for Democratic congressional candidate Ellen Tauscher of California did provide viewers with a real incentive to vote for her rather than her challenger, Bill Baker. Footage in the ad shows Baker moments after he leapt from a stage at a political rally to attack a heckler. Baker looks demented and dangerous. Tauscher won.
Even this year’s winner for best “voter participation” ad turned out to be surprisingly sharpedged. “My name is Angela and I think drugs should be legalized,” began the 30-second radio spot, which ran last fall in Minnesota. “Just because a few people get high and go out and knock off a liquor store or kill somebody or something doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to buy drugs . . . Besides, if drugs were legal, they’d be less expensive, probably. My name is Angela, and on November 5th I’m going to vote.” A responsible male voice then intones: “If you don’t vote, who will? Make your voice heard.” When it comes to scaring the bourgeoisie into showing up at the polls, nothing works better than negative advertising.
Strangely, for all the zesty, bare-knuckled ads they produced, the consultants themselves came off as a fairly humdrum bunch: no Hawaiian shirts or Carville-like ranters in sight. The dinner capped a three-day conference sponsored by the American Association of Political Consultants, which had all the trappings of an industry trade show. Vendors in collapsible booths hawked schlocky tracts (Phil Noble’s Guide to the Internet and Politics, a 37- page “book,” went for $ 10). Minor political luminaries hosted predictably banal panel discussions (“As John Naisbitt said in Megatrends . . .” began consultant and pro-abortion agitator Ann Stone in one session on innovations in print advertising).
During the lunch break on the last day of the conference, a knot of people from a medical-device convention next door filed through the lobby of Washington’s ANA Hotel. For a moment, the two groups merged. Without name tags, it would have been impossible to tell them apart — which ones were the political consultants and which the pap-smear salesmen?
The consultants may have been personally dull, but as the awards ceremony wore on, their ads seemed to get more vicious, though not necessarily more effective. Even the most cynical consultants acknowledge that the public can sense when an ad goes too far. Such, apparently, was the case with a spot produced on behalf of Sandy Hill, an incumbent Republican running for the Michigan state legislature last year.
The ad opens with a bearded convict sitting in a prison cell drinking a cup of coffee and composing a letter to Hill’s opponent, Rose Bogardus. “Dear Rose Bogardus, Seems you and I have a lot in common. We’re both for making the police weaker, but you actually did something about it when you slashed the Genesee County sheriff’s budget. Nice work! We’re both in favor of scamming off the taxpayers, so I applaud you for voting yourself a pay raise while the county was billions in debt. Good Job! So now you’re running for the statehouse again. I hope you win. The state capitol is the perfect place for people like you and me. P.S. Thanks for the cable, Rose. Now I get to watch your negative political ads.”
It’s hard to think of a nastier 29 seconds. But in the end, the attack may have been too much even for “Oprah”-addled television viewers in Flint, Mich., to swallow. “Bogardus won anyway,” sighs consultant Mark Pischea, who wrote the ad. Of course, the outcome of the race had nothing to do with the jury’s choice; the ad won a Pollie by meanness alone.
By Tucker Carlson; Tucker Carlson is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD
