A new Ipsos/McClatchy poll finds Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama now leads GOPer Sen. John McCain 48% to 39% percent and voters feel McCain has run the more negative campaign (by a wide margin) — and believe negative campaigning is not effective.
If this holds up as a post-election conclusion and McCain loses, the verdict will be as we’ve noted here: all negative campaigning has done is take attention away from the case McCain could make for himself in terms of his own positive leadership qualifies and policy specifics. Will McCain take this kind of data into consideration for tonight’s debate, or will he decide to give negative campaigning one, last, mighty try?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.