Mudslinging Turning off Young Voters?

I saw a piece from Reuters yesterday that I thought was interesting. It talks about the ways in which the Clinton and Obama campaigns are taking their first fists of mud and throwing them in the way of the opposition. This is something everyone in politics likes to talk about but how it affects young people is something I've never seen covered, nor have I even thought about it myself.

Every campaign must go negative. It would be great if campaigns were all about flowers and candy and buying everyone in the world a puppy, but the only way that a candidate can show the differences between him/herself is by alluding to those differences.

There are two ways to do this... 1. be comparative - aka show the differences between yourself and your opponent on a specific issue. This is like Hillary talking about the differences between hers and Obama's health care packages and the ways in which they are different. And 2. Attack them. This is like Hillary alluding to Obama being full of pretty words and no action.

"Young people have been drawn to Obama's campaign by his idealistic message and the strength of his grass-roots organizing, said Peter Levine of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which studies youth voting...

But a negative campaign could stop the surge in its tracks, Levine and other researchers said."

People like to say all the time that they don't like when campaigns get nasty. They don't like people attacking one candidate. So why is it that year after year campaigns continue to do it? Because it works.

I had a media consultant explain it to me on the very first campaign I ever worked on. He said that if you were McDonnalds you had 30 seconds from now until the end of time to explain to the general public why your cheeseburgers were better than Wendy's how would you do it? First you'd say, we're the best and here's why - but then you have to tell them why Wendy's isn't the best either. Either they are made of dead people or they give you cancer or you're not cool if you eat Wendy's or whatever.

Campaigns are the same way.

"What could go wrong is if you get a food fight between the major parties," Levine said. "Turnout will be much better if it is positive."

I kinda haft to scream BS on this one. Sure people would prefer it, but I think if you do a comparative ad that deals with issues, people will still see it as negative.

I think its possible for a candidate to go negative or be comparative without blowing their political capital. "Harvard University's Institute of Politics found that many young voters had soured on politics due to bickering of the candidates in the run-up to the vote."

If you check out the survey it verifies what we have seen all along. Young voters crave authenticity above all else. They appreciate candidates who are honest with them and they appreciate positive messages. But going negative isn't deterring them from the voting booth. If they were turned off by mudslinging my guess is that they weren't they keen on voting in the first place. Most young voters know that the stakes are too high this election to be easily swayed by a message like this...

I just don't buy it.