Watching Olympics in rural Michigan. Lots of political ads. But the Democratic PAC is extolling Kamala Harris’ record, and the Republican PAC is running negative ads about her. There are zero ads even mentioning Trump.
Conventional wisdom is political ads go negative when a candidate is losing.
@EileenKCarpenter I think it might actually work the other way around.
A lot of people REALLY don't seem to understand that in a pseudodemocratic / degenerate 2-party system like the US has, if you don't want life to suck, you *have* to vote for the lesser of two evils - it doesn't matter if you *like* who you're voting for, only that they're less evil than the other option.
As a result they only vote when they actively like one of the two candidates.
It's really, really, really dumb.
@EileenKCarpenter Ah, just realized that might've been unclear:
By "might work the other way around" I mean it seems possible that running attack ads instead of positive ads might *lead* to the candidate losing, and conversely running positive ads might be more likely to result in victory...
Instead of the ad choices being a result of candidate position, they might be the determinant. Or more likely there's a much more complex feedback loop at play.
@IrelandTorin
I think part of the incessant negative ads is to make everyone but the party faithful disgusted with the process so they stay home. Independent voters are unpredictable, but more easily manipulated than they like to think. They can just take them out of the equation and stay with all the “safe saeta.”