Does Postive Campagining Effect Your Vote?

[SilentScope001]

I somehow browsed through the archieves of Kavar's Corner and found a thread about Negative Campagining and how it effects its votes. Somehow, it degraded to a rant against Stalin...uh...

 

Anyway, how does Postive Campagining work? If you hear a politican say:

 

Hey, I'm a postivie guy! I can do postivie stuff! Vote for me!

 

Would you vote for him? I mean, stand in line and actually go and vote for that guy, due to a promise that he'll be 'postive'. The reason negative campagining is more powerful is becuase it discourages indepedents and those who like the candinate from voting, allowing for those who are already against the candinate to go and vote for their guy, getting him to win (my thoughts though).

 

However, if we want to stop seeing negative campagin ads, we need to start rewarding Postive Campagining. So, if you hear a politican say, "I'm a good guy!" do you think we should vote for him?

[Web Rider]

No. In the case of campaigning, actions mean everything. This isn't the almost presidency where you make promises of being "cool". When you're running, you can activly be positive in your campaign, so no, simply saying "Vote for me, i'm nice!" will not get my vote.

 

Positivly campaigning, that is not resorting to mudslinging, will.

[MdKnightR]

Mudslinging is a major turnoff for me. That's one of the reasons why I don't vote for Democrats or Republicans any longer. But I would never vote for someone just because he was a "nice guy." I have to know what a candidate stands for...whether he's an angel or a bass-turd.

 

Interesting thing this thread reminds me of. The last governor's race in Georgia was between 2 stuffed shirt politicians and a Libertarian. The Republican and the Democrat were constantly slinging mud at each other during debates instead of offering clear and logical answers to the questions. The Libertarian, on the other hand, had very specific responses and he was a nice guy to boot! While he didn't win the election, he did get more votes than any 3rd party/independent candidate ever had in that race.

[Tommycat]

Positive campaigning is good to get people to vote for you. Negative campaigning is a good way to get people who would vote for your opponent, NOT TO VOTE AT ALL. Believe it or not, negative campaigning, while distasteful, IS an effective method of gaining a win. Sure it runs the risk of turning off those that would vote for you, but it isn't targeted at gaining you votes. Its a method of making the other guy lose more votes than you lose.

 

Personally I prefer campaigning that actually talks about the issues. A campaign that specifies your views on issues. I may not agree with ya, but at least stand up for your beliefs.