Campaigns go negative for a reason

In the waning days of this year’s closely contested midterm election, attacks aimed at impugning a candidate’s character and morals are increasingly dominating campaigns, raising questions about the appropriate boundaries and tenor of the debate.

On Friday Jim Webb, the Democratic Senate candidate in Virginia, came under harsh attack for explicit sexual passages he wrote in a novel several years ago -- the latest twist in his tight race with Republican incumbent George Allen.

In Tennessee, much of the week’s campaign focused on a television ad featuring a woman suggesting that she had met U.S. Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., the Senate Democratic candidate, at a Playboy-sponsored party and saying, with a wink: “Harold, call me.”

In New York, Michael Arcuri, a Democratic candidate for Congress, was accused of calling a phone-sex line and billing taxpayers for the charge.

And in Pennsylvania, Democrats recently needled President Bush for signing a bill for National Character Counts Week a few days before campaigning for Republican Rep. Don Sherwood, who has admitted to having an affair.

“We’ve reached the point where negative ads have become more important than positive campaigns, and there’s almost no line left to cross,” said University of Pennsylvania political scientist Don Kettl. “If it’s there to be found, the highly paid opposition researchers will find it. And if they find it, they’ll use it.”

Looking at it from a campaign strategist’s point of view, Carl Forti, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said: “Negative ads work, which is why you see so many of them.”

The focus on the conduct of candidates comes against the backdrop of a sex scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) that has added to GOP jitters about their ability to hold on to control of Congress.

“High stakes can mean low tactics,” said Jack Pitney Jr., a political professor at Claremont McKenna College. “When a great deal is riding on an election, partisans may feel justified in doing things that might otherwise seem out of bounds.”

Conservative commentator Tamar Jacoby, who recently called for dialogue between Democrats and Republicans, said the ascendancy of personal attacks reflected a “fundamental mistrust” between political parties in a polarized nation.

“When you think that somebody is fundamentally different from you, and doesn’t share your goals for the country, it gets easier and easier to say mean things about them,” said Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank. “It’s like what often happens when countries are preparing for war against one another. They start to say really mean things, so it dehumanizes [the opponent] and allows you to go to war.”

Jacoby added that the public is both repelled and fascinated by the personal attacks.

“I think the public is fed up with it, but people do pay attention to the ads,” she said. “Everybody likes a good fight.”

Some candidates are fighting back.

When the National Republican Congressional Committee aired an ad accusing Arcuri of calling a sex hotline, the candidate dug out 2004 phone records to show that an aide had misdialed the number. It had the same last seven digits as the number for the state Department of Criminal Justice Services, which was dialed shortly after the first call, his campaign said. Threatening legal action, Arcuri’s campaign persuaded TV stations not to run the ad.

But with control of Congress at stake, even a work of fiction can become a true-to-life campaign issue.

In Virginia, where turnout by conservative voters could prove pivotal, the Allen campaign on Friday seized on Webb’s writings -- issuing a statement from a “mother of three” calling portions of his books “shocking” and reflecting “a pattern of demeaning treatment toward women.”

The conservative Traditional Values Coalition demanded that Webb withdraw from the race, citing his “XXX-rated writing.” Webb, a decorated former Marine who fought in Vietnam, has written several war novels.

The attack on Webb came as the Allen campaign has been rocked by charges of racial insensitivity, which have put in play what was once considered a safe GOP seat.

Webb, a former Navy secretary, called the attack a “classic example of the way this campaign has worked. It’s smear after smear.”

Democrats responded Friday by citing racy novels written by Republicans, including the 1981 novel “Sisters” by Lynne Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife, which includes a lesbian love affair. Lynne Cheney said Friday on CNN, “I have never written anything sexually explicit.”

The attacks are expected to escalate even more before the Nov. 7 election, especially in Virginia, one of three states -- along with Tennessee and Missouri -- whose races may determine which party controls the Senate. If Democrats can capture two of the three, they could gain a Senate majority, given other expected pickups.

The Republicans’ eleventh-hour attacks follow GOP promises to make the 2006 elections not just about broad national themes but about sharp personal differences between candidates. GOP strategists have said for weeks that they will work to localize races by making them a “choice” between two candidates rather than a referendum on President Bush.

Democrats have focused on character too. In a New York race, Republican Rep. John E. Sweeney is the target of a Democratic-sponsored online ad that uses an actor to portray him carousing at a frat party. “We deserve a congressman who fights for more than his right to party,” says the ad. Sweeney was criticized earlier this year after attending a party at Union College.

Such attacks make it harder to govern, Jacoby said, once the election is over and lawmakers have to coexist if not cooperate with one another.

“It’s very hard to get to a compromise,” she said, “ if you don’t trust the other guy.”

richard.simon@latimes.com

ricardo.alonso-zaldivar@

latimes.com

Times staff writers Peter Wallsten and Moises Mendoza contributed to this report.