Does negative campaigning work?

Here I am posting two statements from bloggers on the excellent Back Ally Media about Hillary's tactics in Wisconsin over the last week.

The first one is basically saying, don't be mean in Wisconsin, my very kind, unironic state.

I believe Hillary made a big tactical mistake in choosing Wisconsin as the first state to go negative. If you should know anything about the denizens of Wisconsin, it’s that A) we’re big Packer fans who have an affinity for cheap beer, brats, and cheese curds and 2) we’re nice. Wisconsinites - especially progressive Democratic voters - don’t like the nasty stuff. In the last week, Hillary threw a lot of dirty stuff, hoping that something would stick: “Obama ducks debates,” “Obama is an empty suit,” “Obama is a plagiarist.” It all received a lot of coverage, but it clearly didn’t stick and very possibly backfired (though maybe it helped avert a 25-point loss).

The second statement points out that, according to the Wisconsin poll data anyway, the later you decide who to vote for, the more likely you are to support Hillary...and therefore, did the negative campaigning actually work, even if it didn't work well enough to secure Hillary's victory there?

Did negative attacks work?

Probably not, but here’s something interesting. I was looking at the exit polls from Wisconsin, and it seems to me that you could make the argument that Clinton’s attacks on Obama over the last week had an effect. People who made up their minds “today” only support Obama by a 51-49 margin. People who made up their minds in the last three days are for Obama 56 to 44; people who decided ‘last week’ are 68 to 32 for Obama; and people who decided ‘last month’ are 69 to 30 for Obama. So did Clinton’s attacks sway some undecideds?

Well, your guess is as good as mine, but I'm am loving the story I (and therefore this blog) keep telling the world: That when someone comes into the ring and insists on playing clean, the business-as-usual mud-slinging from the others looks like what it is: dirty.

Okay, but I'll stop being lazy--no more using dirt/mud/their aerodynamics metaphors. Because here's what really happens when she, or anyone else, starts negative campaigning over bullshit (Barack's compromised oratory integrity, or the Jesse Jackson supposed analogy, etc.): we lose track of Hillary The Candidate, the one with

• experience,
• Republican survival scars,
• a groundbreaking role as a female Democrat who figured out how to wield power, compromise, and get feisty

and instead we're in the room with Hillary the ruthless Campaign Strategist, the one who

• puts winning the election ahead of why we should vote for her,
• has strategy sessions, meetings with handlers, a bevy of consultants about when to "go negative"
• caters to and summons forces that make this election about things other than policy change, political will, and steering America towards a more just, equal, peaceful society

Her deployment of campaign smearing tactics are blatant appeals to our (granted, well-documented) capacity to be distracted from what really matters in a president. And as I said before, even if those tactics win, we won't love the person who showed us how petty we can be.