Think about the last few negative political ads you’ve seen and see how they use emotion to reach their prospects. I’ve noticed that direct mail is rarely used for negative campaigning. That’s a good thing. Television is used largely because a negative sound bite is far more lasting and insidious than the written word. When you have that paper in your hand, cool, rational thought has a chance to find the lies, if they exist.
In Massachusetts, the political race has turned ugly. It is everywhere I turn. In the race for governor, the number two candidate Kerry Healey has agreed with the Republican pundits and decided to go negative.
Tending toward conservative opinions myself, I’m disappointed. One Healey ad says, “If Deval Patrick gets his way, a thug who bound a 59-year-old woman and repeatedly raped her over the course of an eight hour period… would be free.” If you were especially observant, you’d notice that this statement isn’t based on truth at all. It’s quoted from the writing of Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory, coupled with a carefully edited opinion and stated as a fact. Yet with the quickness of television, the viewer is drawn into a false assumption. I had to review the ad online at Healey’s official website to still-frame it for all the details. Without the time to think it through, the television ad slips by the average viewer without rational inspection.
Negative ads have more of a “fifth column,” sleeper effect. When it comes time to get to a ballot booth, all those hidden messages are going surface in the minds of voters and influence their decisions. At least that is the hopes of negative campaigners.
Could that type of ad in print suffer the light of day in the time we’d take to read the false accusation? I would think not, unless one assumes that all voters are stupid. Now I have a low opinion of the intelligence of the average voter but I grant them the ability to discern written truth from fiction.
The difference between good and bad direct mail is how well you get the prospect involved in what you have written. Emotions can be used to get the prospect involved and ultimately to sell a product and its benefits. I don’t know whether you can get someone to change his or her vote with a direct mail letter but it would be worth a study. I do know that it won’t happen unless you can get them emotionally involved. I think that lies are harder to disguise in print.
In my opinion, a lie is easier to determine when it is written down. The reader is less likely to be sucked in by the slight of hand of loosely used logic. The poorly formed arguments often used by political hucksters and dirty ad engineers are harder to sell when forced down on something as static as paper. While it works in a television ad, using words like “might,” “if,” “suppose” and “assuming” starts to come apart when seen in print. It’s not that people don’t lie through direct mail, because they do. Repeatedly. I just think that lying via the mail is more questionable, and the evidence lasts.
The sons and daughters of “Beelzebub” write political ads in the nether world. No legitimate writer could live with him or herself after writing the type of evil that is required by the political word-twisters of today. In a few days, we’ll see how this particular run turns out. The result of the vote is going to be what lasts.
Albert Saxon is president of Saxon Marketing in Indian Orchard, MA.
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