Negative campaigning does work

I get so tired of when the TV folks tell me that the American people are tired of the "mudslinging" and "negative campaigning." The recent comeback by Hillary proves this out. Her "3 a.m." spot was perfect.



It spotlighted Obama's rampant inexperience, considering he has done basically nothing in his limited time in the Senate. Also, the NAFTA issue helped as well.

In this vital campaign, Hillary was able to accomplish the ultimate goal of "negative" campaigning, spotlight the differences between you and your opponent, pitting his weaknesses against your strengths.

Now here's an example of why being "positive" doesn't work. The New Orleans mayoral election of 2006, where Mitch Landrieu ran against a piece of rottenness ripe for the plucking, Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin? The demagogue, the whiner, the ne'er-do-well?

Remember that Nagin made all sorts of avoidable blunders before and after Katrina? Read Douglas Brinkley's "The Great Deluge" to find out about how pathetic Nagin really was. An excerpt of this magnificent book is here.

Like:

• Not even following the city's evacuation plan for those without transportation (school buses, anyone).
• Waiting to issue an mandatory evacuation order because he feared a lawsuit. A lawsuit!

From Brinkley:

Among Nagin's chief concerns that day: that hotel owners—at the center of the city's $5 billion tourism trade—might be in a position to sue if their businesses were to be disrupted because of a mandatory evacuation. Instead of concentrating exclusively on the needs of the 112,000 citizens who didn't own cars and could not leave the area "voluntarily," instead of marshaling the personnel and deploying the resources necessary for confronting the storm, Ray Nagin stalled.

• Instead of speaking to the frightened, hungry masses piled into the Superdome on his orders, Nagin hid when his city needed him the most.

More from Brinkley:

Mayor Nagin decided to cloister himself in the Hyatt hotel, which loomed over the Superdome, a locale the mayor chose not to speak at, presumably fearing reprisals from evacuees enraged at what many perceived as his lax response to the hurricane—charges Nagin would vigorously refute, saying, "There was no way to pull [a speech] off. There was no megaphone system. There was no microphone." Many of the Hyatt's windows had blown out. The building swayed in the winds, a jagged, gaping monstrosity. He decided to make the hotel his Emergency Operations Center, virtually abandoning City Hall because his bodyguards had told him the Hyatt "was safer."

In the coming days, Nagin often divided his time between an office lair on the 27th floor, the 17th floor (where he had sleeping quarters), and the 4th floor (which had electrical power). While certain mayors in the storm's path were out and about, putting their lives at risk on Monday afternoon, raising morale and checking up on everything after Katrina's onslaught, Nagin was comparatively sedentary, getting the latest news courtesy of a hand-cranked radio straight out of The Waltons. To many, he appeared to be a commander stuck in his bunker.

Yet, he won! After all this evidence that he was the biggest horse's ass in the history of the Crescent City, he beat Landrieu because Landrieu refused to highlight Nagin's laundry list of inadequacies during the campaign. As a result, a man many thought dead in the water was re-elected. That and all of the folks bussed to polling places made sure that Nagin was elected.

So John McCain, attack away, no matter what the socialist big media tell you that the "people" want. Point out what the Democrat, ahem, I mean Socialist candidate has in store for the country. Let them know that all of the goodies they promise taken from the pocketbooks of the rich have serious consequences. That they will cut and run from Iraq. That they will retreat in the face of our many enemies like the power-hungry cowards they are. Or perish. It's all up to you.