Negative Political Ads. Again.

How does anyone determine that negative political ads work? (Other than using them and measuring the results?) Researchers do things like showing test subjects a mixed bag of photos. Pictures of all sorts of things, happy, sad, neutral, horrible, beautiful, ugly, etc. Then they show them a second set of pictures and ask them to press a button every time the second set includes a picture from the first set. The worse the picture, the more likely it is to be remembered. We remember bad stuff.

Okay. If you once saw a snake in the weeds, you would likely be more careful about walking through those weeds in the future. You may also have seen some very pretty wildflowers in those weeds. Next time, you will note the flowers, but you will really be thinking about the snakes. Reasonable.

But there is another reason why negative political ads work. If you have no clue as to the meaning of real issues... if things like socialized medical care, redistribution of wealth, etc., are over your head, too inconvenient to understand, you just ignore those issues. You dismiss them. Who wants to talk about a subject when your ignorance of the subject is likely to be quickly exposed?

How, then, do you make your decisions in the voting booth? You remember the things that are easy to grasp, things you can readily argue for or against. The ways in which you perceive a candidate to be different from you. The ways in which you seem to admire a candidate. He goes to a different - or the same - church. You like the way he talks - or looks. The candidate's age or gender. The ring of the candidate's name. Their place of birth... is he a southerner? A cowboy? An urban elite?

When a candidate talks about their opponent, they repeatedly stress things that are likely to be remembered unfavorably. They stamp those pictures into voter's minds. Campaigns note how these tactics have worked in their campaign, and in campaigns past.

Negative political ads work because of the dumbing down of America. The more frequent and more negative the ads, the dumber America has become.

Here's a challenge. Next time you think a candidate looks or sounds good, or bad. Next time you think about a candidate's religion - or region, stop and ask yourself one question about how the candidate stands on any important issue. Or, even on an unimportant issue.