Tree of Knowledge

As most campaigning aficionados will already have heard, Mark Penn has penned (sorry) an op ed for The Politico in defence of going negative on the campaign trail.

The first line sets the tone for the rest of the article:

Clever negative advertising works. That is reality.

No spin there.

However, I think Penn keeps his true thoughts to himself when he goes on to outline areas of potential negative campaigning for McCain and Obama:

With Obama up only about three points nationally, we can expect a torrent of negative ads this fall aimed at each candidate’s perceived weaknesses. Clearly, McCain has a conservative record on social issues that could be a real vulnerability with women. His comments on having to learn more about economics are hardly comforting to a country in a financial crisis. And Obama’s obvious target is that the more things change, the more they stay the same — a McCain presidency would be just a third Bush term. Obama, meanwhile, has an experience hurdle to overcome.

This was a lot more sanitised than the internal advice he was providing Hillary Clinton during the heat of the primary campaign (now in the public domain via this recently leaked internal memo). In particular, Penn neglects to mention his advocacy of a negative campaign targeting Barack Obama’s background and his ‘lack of American roots’. Here’s the killer section from the notorious memo:

I don’t blame Penn for not wanting to highlight this again in his memo. This is pretty icky stuff and I’m sure he’s not proud of it.

However, while the Clinton candidacy may be ancient history by now, Penn’s Primary Antics are living on in the general election. When reading the above memo, I instantly thought back to John McCain’s first ad of the general election campaign, one that was generally received as a ‘positive’ ad, but might be worth interpreting differently in light of Penn’s memo (which is presumably informed by some kind of focus group or polling research. The final line of McCain’s ad was:

“John McCain: The American president Americans have been waiting for.”

Mmmhmm. Two Americans in a sentence. It’s a double dog whistle!

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