Tame Campaigns in Caucus Country

With just days left before the first votes are cast, the early 2000 campaign is shaping up as the tamest in memory, with candidates largely shunning the kind of negative advertising that has recently characterized presidential politicking.

While the hopefuls continue to trade charges in their stepped-up appearances, the television airwaves have been strikingly absent the sort of rancor that marked the 1996 race, when publisher Steve Forbes spent unprecedented millions trashing front-runner Bob Dole.

Although the political climate is every bit as changeable as the weather, observers agree this year’s mellower tone reflects a larger sense of voter satisfaction with the country and a fear that most Americans, weary of partisan scuffling, will punish any candidate perceived as being too negative.

“There’s a real sensitivity to voters’ being sick and tired of this stuff,” said Anita Dunn, a senior advisor to Democrat Bill Bradley. “For eight years what they have seen is unremitting political warfare coming out of Washington and they are tired of it from both sides. Everyone out there who’s running knows it’s dangerous being identified with that kind of politics.”

Which is not to suggest the candidates are playing patty-cake--or that their negative advertising armistice will last forever.

Up until recently, when polls showed his campaign finally gaining traction, Vice President Al Gore savaged Bradley, the former senator from New Jersey, on almost a daily basis, targeting everything from his health care plan to his alleged indifference to the suffering of Iowa farmers.

Republicans George Bush and John McCain have been waging an increasingly testy debate over taxes as Monday’s Iowa caucuses near, with Forbes chiming in from the sideline.

Bite and Bile Largely Absent

But the bite and bile that has been evident on the campaign trail has been largely absent from the television airwaves, where advertising remains a major source of political information for most Americans. “The tone is different than in past years,” said Darrell West, a Brown University expert on political advertising. “We haven’t really seen any thermonuclear blasts.”

Research by Bill Benoit, a professor of communication at the University of Missouri, underscores the point. He analyzed roughly 90 spots aired through the course of the 1996 primaries. Of those, 58% were positive and 40% were negative--that is, they contained information stating “something unfavorable about [a candidate’s] opponent or policies or proposals.” In contrast, Benoit said, of 63 ads analyzed in this campaign, 92% were positive and only 7% negative. (The rest were spots responding to other advertisements.)

Even those few negative spots have been relatively tame by recent standards. Typical is the current ad lineup in Iowa and New Hampshire, the one-two opening act of the 2000 campaign. Most of the spots make only veiled references, if any, to rival candidates. A Gary Bauer ad in Iowa laments that “even some of my Republican opponents”--who go unnamed--”have put foreign trade ahead of our national security.” In a New Hampshire spot, Texas Gov. Bush referred to “my opponent” in an ad that criticized Sen. McCain of Arizona for his tax cut plan--but never mentioned McCain directly.

McCain responded Friday with a spot that criticizes Bush’s ad and accuses the governor of breaking an earlier vow they made to forsake any negative advertising. “I’m keeping my pledge,” McCain said.

Forbes Admonished for His Accusation

Tellingly, the spot in Iowa that seems to be airing most often is one produced by an independent group, the Republican Leadership Council, that scolds Forbes for one of his ads accusing Bush of breaking a gubernatorial campaign pledge by raising taxes.

“Call Steve Forbes,” the reproving ad urges television viewers. “Tell him to join George Bush and John McCain in running a positive campaign.”

The ad, of course, is itself a negative spot. Indeed, Forbes asserts that the Republican Leadership Council is a front group for Bush, which the governor denies. But the very fact that candidates are disassociating themselves from such explicit assaults shows how much the atmosphere has changed since 1996, when candidates led by Forbes and Dole traded a flurry of negative ads in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

Even Forbes is shunning the kind of relentless attack advertising he favored four years ago. His latest Iowa spot is a character testimonial, featuring an ethnic melting pot of faces. “Different campaign,” campaign chief Bill Dal Col said. “You don’t fight the last war.”

But Forbes may have also learned a lesson from that previous battle. After bursting from the Republican pack, he finished a disappointing fourth in Iowa, in large part because of revulsion over his negative advertising. “He generated a backlash that really hurt him,” said Arthur Miller, a University of Iowa political scientist. “This time around he’s got to be quite concerned about that.” Others must be too.

As long as Forbes and Bush--the contestants with the biggest ad budgets--stay positive, there is little incentive, or opportunity, for other Republicans to launch aerial attacks. “It’s hard to be the first to go negative because, typically, that’s the person who gets blamed” for any ensuing mudslinging, said West, who has written a book on the history of campaign advertising. “So if nobody goes negative, it makes it difficult for anybody else to do it.”

On the Democratic side, the closest thing to an overtly negative ad was a Gore spot that featured Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa praising the vice president as “the only” Democratic candidate who helped the state back in 1993 after massive flooding. Still, the word “Bradley” was never heard and once polls showed him comfortably ahead, Gore switched to a spot that features him in a town-hall setting, vowing “to fight for all of the people” and offering no hint that he even has a Democratic opponent.

But just like the mild winter Iowa enjoyed up until the middle of this week--when temperatures plunged--the political climate could shift overnight. Many expect it will as soon as the campaign moves from the cozy confines of the two leadoff states.

“Both Bush and Gore need to get this over with early and they’re going to have to determine if they’re in a position to throw a knockout punch,” said Bob Beckel, a Democratic analyst. “Once you leave Iowa and New Hampshire, I think you’re going to see the negative attacks and the rhetoric go up considerably.”

To think otherwise would be to kid oneself, he suggested, the way Iowans may have been lulled before Wednesday’s snowfall.

“It may be nice for a while,” Beckel said of the unseasonably temperate political conditions, “but you know you’re not going to make it all the way through without at least one blizzard hitting.”