Saturday, May 12, 2007 Nalzaro: Negative campaigning By Bobby Nalzaro Saksi
HAVE you seen the political advertisement on TV of Raymond Alvin Garcia, candidate for Cebu City vice mayor? It directly attacks Vice Mayor Michael Rama, who is running for reelection. The political ad, which is computer generated, shows figures with the faces of Rama and Mayor Tomas Osmeña on top of a building.
In the dialogue balloons, Tommy orders Mike to close the Sto. Niño Church and South Coastal Road and to increase taxes.
Mike’s answer is always, “Yes sir.” When Tommy orders Mike to jump from the building, his response is, “from what floor sir?”
Then he jumps. A smiling Garcia later appears saying, “Iboto ang may baruganan.”
That political ad portrays Rama as a “yes man” and the Council as a rubberstamp. This could be true.
In newspapers, meanwhile, there’s that advertisement showing the blurred face of Jonas Cortes, candidate for Mandaue City mayor. His committee membership in the Council was also listed. Then the question: “Unsay imong nahimo?” A radio advertisement also assailed Cortes’ “achievements” in the Council. Another advertisement exposed Cortes’ failing grades in college.
In Lapu-Lapu City, streamers are mounted in some sites describing suspended Mayor Arturo “Boy” Radaza as corrupt mayor, with the tag line, “Deretso uno, suspenso, deretso 2, priso.”
The political ads I mentioned are what is called negative campaigning or smear campaign. Wikipedia describes it as “trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or of a policy rather than emphasizing one's own positive attributes or preferred policies.”
The website continues: “Negative campaigning can be found in most marketplaces where ideas are contested. This is tantamount to mudslinging. Some researches suggest negative campaigning is the norm in all political venues, mitigated only by dynamics of a particular contrast.
“Negative campaigning tactics in democracies are often rhetorical, whereas negative campaigning in totalitarian jurisdictions sometimes involves criminal charges and torture to convince constituents of negative aspects of opposition ideas.
“There are number of techniques used in negative campaigning. The most often and effective is running advertisements attacking an opponent's personality or record.
“Dirty tricks are also common in negative political campaigns. These generally involve secretly leaking damaging information to the media. This isolates the candidate from backlash and also does not cost any money. But the material must be substantive enough to attract media interest. But if the truth is discovered it could severely damage a campaign.
“Other dirty tricks include trying to feed an opponent's team false information hoping they will use it and embarrass themselves. The other tactic is to use outside organizations such as lobby groups to lunch attacks. These can be claimed to be coming from a neutral source and if the allegations turns out not to be true, the attacking candidate will not be damaged if the link cannot be proven.”
Negative campaigning is argumentum ad hominem, meaning that if a debater runs out of arguments he resorts to personal attacks. Well, in our country's murky waters of politics, negative campaigning or mudslinging can be better than engaging in political violence.
