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There appears to be an ongoing debate in Bernie Sanders's campaign hierarchy as to whether he should launch a flight of negative ads against Hillary.
Write Jason Horowitz and Yamiche Alcindor in the New York Times:
"The senator has prided himself on running an inspiring, issue-oriented campaign, and he speaks often of how he is not interested in tearing Mrs. Clinton down. . . . But the decision he is now grappling with echoes questions voiced by his supporters as Mr. Sanders finds himself within striking distance of Mrs. Clinton in Iowa: Does he have the stomach to directly attack her, and potentially defeat her, or will he be satisfied having injected important issues into the race and preserving his well-earned reputation for eschewing negative campaigning?"
And the Clinton campaign is engaged in a preemptive public shaming effort to keep Sanders from going negative.
This quadrennial question -- to go negative or not? -- has only one right answer: Do it.
I get why Sanders is equivocating about going negative. He, like every candidate ever, wants to win in a way he deems "fair and square." As in, on the strength of his positive message and vision for America solely. That sounds nice. And it almost never works.
Negative ads get a very bad rap. Elections are, fundamentally, about a choice. The best way - or at least, one of the best ways - to make clear to voters the differences between you and your opponent(s) is with TV ads that contrast you with them.
Now of course, there are gradations in negative ads. There are contrast spots which do exactly what I said a winning candidate should do, and then there are just totally negative ads designed simply to push less-than-appealing information (that may or not be totally accurate) into the public consciousness.
This is not meant to be a defense of all negative ads. Some quite clearly cross the line - and they usually boomerang back on the candidate (or group) who is behind them. But I would much rather live in a political world in which negative ads were embraced than one in which they were outlawed.
Sanders - in debates and media interviews - hasn't been shy about casting Clinton as a late-arriver to some liberal causes. And Clinton, in turn, has worked hard to create an image of Sanders as a pie-in-the-sky idealist who has no clue how the real world works.
And yet Sanders's team is openly nervous about the prospect of taking that anti-Clinton message to the actual airwaves. Those nerves are built around the idea that "people" don't like negative ads and that, by running them, Sanders will risk the "above politics" image that has rallied so many people to his cause.
That is, I suppose, technically possible. But I think it would only happen if Sanders launched an ad campaign in the final days of Iowa that went deeply personal on Clinton - like an ad that spent 30 or 60 seconds detailing Bill Clinton's indiscretions while in the White House. Sanders's campaign simply isn't going to do that. I think as long as the ads are within the accepted rules of political conduct - and that's a pretty darn wide berth - Sanders would risk very little (and could gain a lot) by running them.
Why? Because people might not say they like negative ads, but they listen to them and process the information contained in them when they go into their caucuses or ballot box. Time after time, in campaign after campaign, the positive effect of negative ads can be seen. Even if people don't admit to listening to/watching negative ads, interviews in exit polling and the like often produce verbatim quotes from information pushed to voters via negative commercials.
Winners write history. And politics isn't all inspirational speeches to adoring crowds. Yes, Barack Obama's soaring oratory played a major role in his win over Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. So too did his willingness to draw contrasts with her on health care and Iraq.
If Sanders wants to win rather than score a moral victory - which, last time I checked, doesn't actually count as a win - he needs to put up ads that make clear for voters the differences between Clinton and himself. And soon.
Previously:
• 02/01/16: What to know heading into the Iowa caucuses
• 01/29/16: Winners and losers from the 7th Republican presidential debate
• 01/27/16: Ranking the Republican 2016 field
• 01/25/16: Trump is the favorite to be the Republican nominee. Period
• 01/22/16: Who had the worst week in Washington? Hillary Clinton
• 01/18/16: Feeling bad for Jeb Bush
• 01/15/16: Winners and losers from the sixth Republican presidential debate
• 01/12/16: Here's exactly how Bernie Sanders can beat Hillary Clinton
• 01/11/16:The fantasy scenario that could become reality for Hillary
• 12/30/15: The five big lessons from a weirdly watchable year of politics
• 12/21/15: Winners and losers in the third Democratic presidential debate
• 12/16/15: Winners and losers from the 5th Republican presidential debate
• 12/16/15: Cruz, not Trump, looking like GOP favorite for 2016
• 12/04/15: Ted Cruz is the sleeping giant in the Republican race
• 11/24/15:Trump is leading an increasingly fact-free 2016 campaign
• 11/23/15: A ranking of GOP presidential candidates who can still make a case --- and the nominee
• 11/16/15: The remarkably unappealing anger of Donald Trump
• 11/11/15: Winners and losers from the fourth Republican debate
• 11/02/15: Jeb Bush says he still doesn't get why his terrible debate performance matters so much
• 10/29/15: Winners and losers from the third Republican presidential debate
• 10/22/15: Paul Ryan might be saving his party. But at what cost?
• 10/20/15: Six things we know Joe Biden is thinking
• 10/19/15: Who had the worst week in Washington? Lincoln Chafee
• 10/14/15: Winners and losers from the first Dem presidential debate
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