I heard something this morning on NPR's Forum that was verrrrrrry interesting. The guests were discussing political ads, and specifically why negative ads are effective. I've known for years (at least anecdotally) that they're effective, but I personally had always thought that the reason was because they convinced people to vote for the candidate attacking vs. the candidate being attacked.
It turns out that the reason is a bit more insidious. Negative attack ads are run because they actually *discourage* people from voting. The point is not to convince people that the attacker is a better candidate, it's to depress people from even showing up to support the guy who's being attacked.
Isn't that insane? More and more I think the US should mandate voting, and provide absentee ballots to anyone who wants them. If we had such a system, it would remove the apparent incentive to run negative ads, and maybe help raise the overall quality of political discourse. Yarrr.
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