Accentuating the Negative

They were called "roarbacks," those last-minute campaign charges of doubtful validity and howling viciousness that were so common in 19th century American politics. In this more enlightened age of television and marketing, the term has been forgotten, but the tactic endures. Indeed, negative political advertising seems to be growing, and getting meaner, in the closing weeks of this year's campaign.

Mudslinging has become an issue in itself in the Massachusetts congressional race between Republican Margaret Heckler and Democrat Barney Frank, two incumbents who face each other as a result of redistricting. Among $220,000 worth of Heckler television commercials that hit the air this month is one charging that Frank "sponsored a bill to permit legalized prostitution . . . and voted to reduce the sentence for violent rape." The facts: as a state legislator, Frank sponsored a bill favored by police to allow cities to create "adult-entertainment zones," and in Congress he voted for a new criminal code for Washington, D.C, unwanted would reduce penalties for rape as a way of persuading more juries to bring convictions. The Boston Herald-American said Heckler "deliberately and callously distorted" the record.

Negative advertising took a quantum leap in 1980, when a number of conservative groups successfully targeted liberal candidates, mostly Democrats, for defeat. This year no side has a monopoly on the practice, and the victims are hitting back. In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Allen Ertel implied on the campaign trail that Republican Governor Richard Thornburgh bore part of the blame for a shooting spree by a deranged prison guard who killed 13 last month in Wilkes-Barre. In retaliation, Thornburgh put ads on television charging that his challenger was "silent" when white policemen in Harrisburg began selling Ku Klux Klan pins. Republican Congressman Cooper Evans of Iowa has been running commercials charging that Opponent Lynn Cutler was absent from 25% of her meetings of the Black Hawk County board of supervisors. Democrat Cutler responded by attacking Evans for missing 40% of the meetings of the House Agriculture Committee. Says Cutler's press secretary Chris Gresock: "Once the tone of a campaign is set, the other party is obliged to respond."

Pollsters are finding that in cases in which both candidates swing at each other, instead of touting their own merits, both may lose popularity. Says Robert Squier, who produces commercials, some of them negative, for Democrats: "You can end up with a situation where the voters say, 'If you want to fight it out, go do it alone.' " Unfortunately, this is not always the reaction. In the Iowa Governor's race, Democrat Roxanne Conlin ended a tailspin in the polls after she introduced ads charging that Republican Terry Branstad as a state legislator had voted against helping the handicapped. Says Conlin Aide Jill Wiley: "Negative is quick."

Perhaps the only positive thing to be said about negative advertising is that it sometimes backfires. The National Conservative Political Action Committee is spending $650,000 in ads aimed at unseating Maryland Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes. The campaign was so heavy-handed that Challenger Lawrence Hogan has urged NCPAC "to get out of the state." Republican Robin Beard of Tennessee is trying to topple Democratic Senator Jim Sasser with a series of denigrating commercials. One shows greedy hands grabbing bundles of bills from a crate labeled FOREIGN AID as a narrator accuses Sasser of sending "millions of your tax dollars" to such places as "Cambodia, Angola and Laos. Even Cuba." Says a Fidel Castro look-alike as he lights his cigar with a $100 bill: "Muchissimas gracias, Senor Sasser. "(In fact, no foreign aid goes directly to these countries.) Another shows an elderly woman saying that Sasser voted for amnesty for Viet Nam draft dodgers. She starts to weep as she recalls that her son was killed there. (No such vote ever occurred.) The tactic did not work: polls show Beard's support dropping and his own negative ratings soaring. Citing the ads, the Nashville Banner retracted its endorsement of Beard and supported Sasser.

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