Jonathan Alter: How Super PACs Will Keep The Campaign Clean

[babylonsister]

http://www.nationalmemo.com/how-super-pacs-will-keep-the-campaign-clean/

How Super PACs Will Keep The Campaign Clean
May 25th, 2012 5:28 pm Jonathan Alter


Strangely enough, the 2012 presidential campaign, expected to be the dirtiest in modern memory, may end up being relatively clean.

That’s because both sides agree that the economy is the central issue and that sideshows like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright aren’t persuasive for voters. Karl Rove and Larry McCarthy, the creator of the infamous Willie Horton ad, think harsh personal attacks against President Barack Obama will backfire, and they’re offering more subtle messages of economic disappointment instead.

Even economic assaults can boomerang nowadays. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, an otherwise strong Obama supporter, dealt the Obama campaign a blow last weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when he said he was “nauseated” by an Obama ad lambasting Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital LLC. The president’s defense of the ad, in which he said “there are folks who do good work” in private equity, was too complicated to be effective.

The controversy surrounding the Bain ad and a proposed Wright ad from a super-PAC backed by Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD), suggests that when “paid media” in the presidential race ventures out-of- bounds, “free media” will exact a penalty. (House and Senate races are another story.)

We can still expect a misleading and overwhelmingly negative campaign, but the distortions and outright lies will be mostly about the candidates’ records and positions, not their race, religion and standing as patriotic Americans. I don’t mean to be pollyannaish, but that represents a step up from the gutter.

snip//

I’ve long argued that when you’re talking about the most powerful job in the world, all biographical facts — relationships with old pastors, management of companies, religious practices, even old girlfriends — are at least potentially relevant. But this year, with the country facing a stark choice in hard times, they will be derided as distractions from an unusually substantive campaign.

[babylonsister]

1. No comments? Hmmm... do you think Alter is right? nt

[spanone]

2. i don't buy it. he is being pollyannaish. the thugs don't play fair.

karl rove hasn't even begun.