As the presidential election gets nastier, there are more and more "independent voices" advocating an end to mud-slinging cam-paigns. Among them, Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), Cloud Gate Dance Theater's artistic director Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) and Formosa Plastics Group chairman Wang Yung-ching (王永慶) signed a half-page advertisement in a Chinese-language newspaper in the middle of this month that urged all political leaders to refrain from "abusing" Taiwan's democracy and to focus on policy debates.
The suggestion is constructive in terms of bringing the voters a "third" perspective in judging which camp is better. But when it comes to real politics, negative campaigning is often a necessary evil. It cannot be halted. It can only be complemented with a positive perspective.
It is often said that voters hate negative campaigning. They have always hated it. But it has always worked better than any other approach, so candidates keep using it because winning is the ultimate goal. Negative campaigning has a long history in Taiwan. In the past, the emphasis on the independence-unification dichotomy used to be one of the elements. The then-ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) long portrayed a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) victory as the realization of Taiwan's independence, saying this would be coupled with China launching a military attack.
Even the DPP has benefited from negative campaigns in the last legislative election. In one of the most controversial TV ads, the DPP portrayed the opposition as the main obstruction to passing social-welfare bills. The results of the election showed that most voters seconded the DPP's campaign messages.
Despite its usefulness, the effects of negative campaigning vary. First, as voters gradually showed their dislike of slander and defamation in elections, especially in urban areas, candidates have alternated their strategy on the political battlefield by using both positive and negative campaigns. Moreover, attacks on a candidate's personality and his family are less effective if there is no concrete evidence. That means that a "last-minute" false accusation does not necessarily translate into votes.
Second, more urban voters understand that a blemish on one's record is not necessarily a disqualification that affects all other aspects of a candidate's personality. Voters are also much more wary of negative information about a candidate's policy stance. The vast amount of information available via TV and the Internet each day has made voters more savvy in assessing attacks against a politician's record.
For negatives to work, they usually have to rely on a simplistic reaction from voters that can be brought to a fever pitch in 30 seconds. But voters' improving discernment in understanding both the variables of personality and the intricacies of policy issues make negatives a harder sell than ever before.
Third, negatives are sometimes used as tactical tools to gain an advantage. But most of the time, negative campaigning will only work once you have laid out a solution to the problem through positive ads. While telling people of how much money the KMT has taken from the nation, the DPP should also offer concrete plans on how to get that property back.
Campaigns start with competing messages. The key to winning any race is to come up with an affirmative message that outdistances your opponent's message. In articulating the affirmative message of a campaign, comparisons between the issue positions may be necessary.
With less than 60 days left before the election, both camps should add more propaganda in building up their own image through positive ads as well.
Liu Kuan-teh is a Taipei-based political commentator.
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