Harry McGee of the Irish Examiner reports that Fine Gael are poised to launch a poster campaign that uses the image of a happy looking PD leader, Tainaste and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell alongside statistics about rising levels of reported crime.
Cian over at Irish Election calls it “negative campaigning” - anticipating I’m sure the tone lot of coverage in coming days. But I think only people who haven’t lived in a free-wheeling political communications environment could call it that.
It’s a pretty straightforward ad. How is it ‘negative campaigning’ to call attention to what you claim to be a deficiency in the performance of the incumbents? Negative campaigning to me calls to mind ‘attack ads’ that can be accused of going beyond the pale, like the anti-Harold Ford ad referencing the Playboy Superbowl Party in the US midterms last November.
Unless the Opposition lacks any pulse whatsoever, you would hope to see them mix it up with something a little more direct than the, erm, subtlety of the 2002 Celtic Snail. How else are you going to draw contrasts and distinctions for voters. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that labelling something as innocuous as this ‘negative campaigning’ is itself a way of de-legitimising criticism itself and stifling authentic political debate.
Another big question is which political party will make the best use of new media - i.e. most importantly, YouTube. When Fine Gael commissioned the TV-like spots for its Ripoff.ie campaign in 2004, it was probably too early in the adoption curve for online video - though the link got passed around virally and they got a good result that year. With broadband use up and infrastructure like YouTube allowing Simon McGarr to create a front-end around it on VoteTube, the timing is certainly right.
I’d be interested in hearing from those schooled in Irish election law whether I’m right in thinking that online video wouldn’t be regulated by existing legislation.
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Dan Sullivan // Jan 3, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I’m not schooled in election law in the professional sense but as a candidate in ‘04 locals and a hopeful NUI Seanad candidate this time out I have some perspective.
In essence services you as an professional individual give to a candidate or party are viewed as benefit kind. Also, it has to be for a party. If it is anti someone then who came it possibly be charged to?
Now, for youtube what is the cost? youtube aren’t charging anyone anything? And if someone as a professional hairdresser does a min-ad and posts it then it shouldn’t be included but if a graphic designer did it then it might be. But if they did it in 30 minutes then they could cost it at €50 for a half hour’s work.
This kind of follows on from the situatiuon that if a solicitor gives a candidate legal advice for free something that might bill out at €100 per hour during the campaign they have to include in their expenditure However, if the same solicitor spend 8 hours per day dropping leaflets into doors, something that bills out at about €50 per 500 houses or €20 per hour, that doesn’t need to be included!
However, none of this has been really legally tested. For example in the ‘02 election we saw Michael Martin use Dail facilities to assist his campaign which he did not include his expenditure. When it was included retrospectively it put him over the limit. This was something which Kathy Sinnott challenged in court as she had lost be a handful of votes and she stated that this materially impacted the outcome of the election. The court agreed with her on the detail but said that it wouldn’t overturn an election result on the grounds of campaign expenditure limits.
2 R. Delevan // Jan 3, 2007 at 6:25 pm
I’d presume the creative and prod costs would be declarable…just zero distribution costs…
3 Dan Sullivan // Jan 4, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Yes, I expect they would be but if say I do it. As a none TV professional then what can we assess that as? €30 per hour? And an ad can be done in one hour. Basically, any one candidate would do a good number of ads for less than €300 for their whole campaigh. Of course, the magic bit is if they do the ads before the campaign officially starts then none of the production cost, small as it is, needs to be declared as it was outside the time frame!
4 Cian // Jan 9, 2007 at 3:41 am
I have read both you and dan since i covered that piece and I have to say im pretty convinced by the distinctions you both make regarding negative campaigning. Clearly there is a line where political campaigning gets lazy and opts to play the personality but there is a valuable distinction to be made between that and ads which focus on negative achievement.
I think that from a political communication point of view its worth taking the moral high ground and suggesting a positive agenda makes a negative assesment more valuable and helps to rebalance the campaign in favour of debate.
5 gingu can // Jan 31, 2007 at 7:13 pm
dan sullivan,
no
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