ABSTRACT
If negative advertising does not work, its increasing use across the American political landscape would be difficult to explain (see Guskind & Hagstrom, 1988; Nugent, 1987). During the 1988 Presidential campaign, for instance, viewers saw 30-second spots charging that Michael Dukakis was soft on criminals, allowed pollution to go unchecked, and was weak on national defense. There were images of criminals walking to freedom through penitentiary gates, disgusting pools of industrial pollution, and Dukakis smiling from the turret of an Army tank as it drove in circles around an open field. Late in the campaign, Dukakis countered with his own negative attacks on George Bush, and at one point tried to make the negative tone of the Bush campaign an issue itself.
