First off, and always, I feel that I need to preface all mayoral blog posts with the disclosure that I am working for the Ralph Becker for Mayor Campaign.

Of late many people, myself included, have noticed an increase in negative attacks by the Dave Buhler campaign towards our campaign. At the same time I have noticed many people on message boards adamantly defending Dave as simply showing the differences between the two candidates and not being at all negative.

So who is right? What is the difference between positive and negative campaigning? I hope I can elaborate without boring too many people.

I would argue that the difference between a positive and negative campaign can be summarized by how the candidate presents ideas and concepts to voters and how they go about contrasting them with their opponent.

The first sign of a negative campaign is to label the opponent and his ideas under one abstract concept, to call the opponent a “liberal” or “conservative” (for example) and use it as an insult. Labeling the opponent as an abstract is, either consciously or unconsciously, designed to separate your opponent and make them seem foreign to the values you represent. By doing this you psychology create a barrier, making further attacks more socially acceptable. In some ways all politicians do this by referring to their opponent as “their opponent;” If someone were to say “Steve Smith is opposed to x” the psychological impact is that Steve Smith is a person with valid ideas. By creating an abstract the offender is able to lay the ground work for further attacks.

The second sign of a negative campaign is to use this abstract to manipulate facts. Common tactics include questioning a candidate’s effectiveness, using voting history in a way that it oversimplified, and claiming that ideas are stolen from either your own campaign or from something that already exists. By doing this the voter becomes confused, upset, or both by the positions your opponent is taking; by confusing the voter you hope to show that your simple plans will not only work, but work better.

The third sign of a negative campaign is to make politics personal. By questioning someone’s personal values, their family history, or personal past the intention is to further separate the candidate from the group. Personal attacks are risky, however, as this is the stage when dirty politics becomes obvious to the majority of voters. A candidate going to this stage must be confidant that they have sufficiently separated their opponent from the group to make personal insults socially acceptable; if they miscalculate this step it is quite possible that the voter not only feels sympathetic towards your opponent but decides to turn against you.

So is Dave Buhler being negative? In my mind he meets two out of the three signs of a negative campaign and is very close to fulfilling the third criteria.

First look at how Buhler is trying to positively label himself as a “Doer” while he negatively casts Becker as a “Dreamer.” By segregating and degrading Becker as a dreamer, Buhler is effectively trying to create a foundation to build further attacks by attempting to separate him from the crowd. After all, this is America, we want to get things done!

Secondly analyze how Buhler scrutinizes Becker’s voting history and effectiveness. Buhler claims, correctly, that Becker did not pass that many bills while on Capitol Hill; by claiming that this shows Becker as ineffective, Buhler crosses over from facts to deceitfulness. Furthermore when Buhler claims that Becker’s environmental issues are “vague” and that he has been “ineffective in funding green issues” he is effectively trying to instill doubt in the voters mind. This, in my mind, is out and out deceitful and shows of my second point.

Finally Buhler has started to dive into Becker’s past. By questioning Becker’s past work with environmental firm Bear West, he is starting to attack Becker as a moral person and as a possible hypocrite. This is harder to place as it may fall under the second criteria as well.

In short it does appear that Buhler is attempting to run a negative campaign.

I am sure that I will get a post asking why I don’t think Becker is just as negative – to you I will simply tell you to wait. I am sure everyone loves reading novels (with a blog would it be called a blovel?), but for now just let this stew around the ‘ol noodle. I fully plan on discussing Becker’s campaign to see if responding to attacks is equally negative as well as discuss if the campaign meets the three criteria listed above. Furthermore I will discuss why a candidate would go negative.