Romney and Gingrich and the Mudslinging Wars

After Newt Gingrich won South Carolina, he rose to the lead in polls of Florida, the next primary state. This was too threatening to Mitt Romney’s campaign, so he proceeded to completely smother Florida in negative ads about Gingrich. They’re saying that Romney outspent Gingrich by a whopping 15 to 1, but that only 0.1% of the overall ads were pro-Romney and 70% were anti-Gingrich! Unfortunately for those of us who don’t like negative campaigning, it worked. Romney erased Gingrich’s lead in the polls and soared to new heights, completing the race yesterday with a solid first-place finish of almost half the votes.

Thomas Sowell thought Romney’s attacks on Gingrich’s record were pretty unfair, but Newt’s attacks on Romney weren’t any better. He claimed that Romney denied kosher food to Jewish medical patients, which seems to be a despicably blatant lie. Look, I see some justification for trying to present the truth about another candidate to the electorate, especially if you feel they are unaware of some important things about the candidate, though I think it’s a little extreme to spend 700 times more effort attacking your opponent than supporting yourself, even if the ads are completely fair, and they probably weren’t. But there’s no excuse for concocting outright lies to deface your opponent.

Eric at Classical Values has been decrying all of this negativity. Sure, Romney’s onslaught “worked” in the sense that he destroyed Gingrich’s lead and handily won the race. But sometimes these campaigns remind me of businesses that focus on short-term gains at the expense of long-term gains. Does negative campaigning really “work” if the broader electorate gets so fed up with it all that they don’t want to vote for any of you in November?

I have to say I’ve really come to respect Ron Paul even more through this campaign season. He certainly throws out his share of attacks on his opponent’s records, but he usually relates his attacks to the principles of liberty and freedom and how those opponents have fallen short of it (though I do think there have been some exaggerations there). Most politicians simply latch on to anything they can to attack a candidate even if it leads to the inconvenient collateral damage of inadvertently attacking the very principles of their party. But what’s most impressive is that not only does Paul avoid that base mudslinging, he actually defends other candidates from it! While other candidates have been attacking Romney for some aspects of his capitalistic record, Paul has been defending him and basically accusing the other candidates of sounding like Democrats in their zeal to defeat Romney.

Paul recognizes that the principles of conservatism are more important than the political campaigning, because if you have to undermine those principles to win the campaign, then what did you actually win? If that reminds you of any other aspects of Paul’s philosophy, it should. That’s the kind of consistency and integrity I like to see.

2 thoughts on “Romney and Gingrich and the Mudslinging Wars”

  1. Nice article on the “mudslinging wars”. This sort of behavior has gone on for a very long time – all the way back to the 1800 Presidential election between Adams and Jefferson – but you can’t help but be worried about the state of American Politics and this sort of behavior from our supposed leaders.

    The thing that worries me most about these types of public attacks between candidates is that a “politics of fear” atmosphere emerges where voters don’t really know or understand the political positions of the various candidates, but base their decisions on who they think has better personality traits. For instance, a person may vote for Romney because he has an ostensibly good family life, while not voting Gingrich because of his infidelities, rather than on any political views of said candidates. To be sure, there is definitely some merit to both of these claims – and Gingrich’s behaviors I find morally repugnant – but should that be the end-all be-all when picking a candidate? How many voters have a truly clear understanding of Romney and Gingrich’s views on various topics that would allow them to clearly decipher the political differences between the two and then make an informed vote on that knowledge? I’m not sure. I’m actually not even sure I can tell much of a difference myself! When the media bases their coverage of the campaign on the personalities of the candidates rather than their politics (and the politicians focus on attacks rather than political positions), the voters will not be correctly informed and will end up making their votes based on personality. For how much I dislike the aspects of Gingrich’s personal life, if he held political positions I agreed with, I’d still be interested in voting for him, but that’s just me (and for the record, I don’t find Gingrich’s politics all that great). I’d rather make choices based on politics and who’s going to protect my liberties and freedoms rather than on personality and what the candidate does in his or her free time, as long as that behavior doesn’t violate the rights of another person.

    Ron Paul does have his moments when he attacks his opponents engages in mudslinging – for example, his 1996 run for Congress when he accused his opponent of “race baiting” when he was questioned on his past writings on the L.A. Riots – but overall I really appreciate the fact that he sticks with politics when trying to make his points. I also appreciate the fact that during debates you rarely see Paul lose his cool, interrupt someone, or get angry when someone interrupts him. I think it’s a perfect example of his integrity and his genuine desire to use his political talents to help others. Obviously that’s a matter for debate, but when it comes to “personality”, Paul wins in a landslide for me.

  2. Nice article on the “mudslinging wars”. This sort of behavior has gone on for a very long time – all the way back to the 1800 Presidential election between Adams and Jefferson – but you can’t help but be worried about the state of American Politics and this sort of behavior from our supposed leaders.

    The thing that worries me most about these types of public attacks between candidates is that a “politics of fear” atmosphere emerges where voters don’t really know or understand the political positions of the various candidates, but base their decisions on who they think has better personality traits. For instance, a person may vote for Romney because he has an ostensibly good family life, while not voting Gingrich because of his infidelities, rather than on any political views of said candidates. To be sure, there is definitely some merit to both of these claims – and Gingrich’s behaviors I find morally repugnant – but should that be the end-all be-all when picking a candidate? How many voters have a truly clear understanding of Romney and Gingrich’s views on various topics that would allow them to clearly decipher the political differences between the two and then make an informed vote on that knowledge? I’m not sure. I’m actually not even sure I can tell much of a difference myself! When the media bases their coverage of the campaign on the personalities of the candidates rather than their politics (and the politicians focus on attacks rather than political positions), the voters will not be correctly informed and will end up making their votes based on personality. For how much I dislike the aspects of Gingrich’s personal life, if he held political positions I agreed with, I’d still be interested in voting for him, but that’s just me (and for the record, I don’t find Gingrich’s politics all that great). I’d rather make choices based on politics and who’s going to protect my liberties and freedoms rather than on personality and what the candidate does in his or her free time, as long as that behavior doesn’t violate the rights of another person.

    Ron Paul does have his moments when he attacks his opponents engages in mudslinging – for example, his 1996 run for Congress when he accused his opponent of “race baiting” when he was questioned on his past writings on the L.A. Riots – but overall I really appreciate the fact that he sticks with politics when trying to make his points. I also appreciate the fact that during debates you rarely see Paul lose his cool, interrupt someone, or get angry when someone interrupts him. I think it’s a perfect example of his integrity and his genuine desire to use his political talents to help others. Obviously that’s a matter for debate, but when it comes to “personality”, Paul wins in a landslide for me.

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