Orange County (CA) Register: Why negative campaigning prospers

Why negative campaigning prospers

Attacking a rival works when marketing candidates, but not products

Gary M. Galles is a Pepperdine University economics professor

Friday, June 9, 2006

For Californians already sick of negative politics, the campaign concluding with this week's primary election was enough to induce vomiting. Particularly like Ipecac was the Westly-Angelides gubernatorial primary, in which the very similar Democrat candidates thoroughly trashed one another. It makes the general election a truly depressing prospect.

However, it is worth asking why politics is so negative compared with marketing, its private sector analog, even though everyone who participates in that negativity claims to completely detest it. The difference reflects two important ways that political competition differs from market competition: higher payoffs for negative attacks and less-informed "customers."

In markets, sales require customers to cast affirmative votes by buying a product. Simply convincing a potential customer to shun a rival's product does not mean a sale for you, because a prospect can choose among several sellers or not to buy at all. But those alternatives are less available in an election with only two major candidates, where customers are effectively forced to "buy" from one.

If you're a candidate, convincing an uncommitted voter to vote against the "other guy" by tearing him down is as valuable as convincing a voter to vote for you. Getting someone who would have voted for your rival to not vote is also as valuable as a vote for you. Switching a rival's voter to your side is worth two votes, since it adds one vote for you and subtracts one from them.

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http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/opinion/abox/article_1174948.php