John Geer on the Web

Midterm election season is almost upon us, and so we can safely expect that the tenor of TV advertising is about to take a negative turn. Attack ads are regularly condemned as a plague on the body politic, but in a new book, political scientist John Geer argues that negative ads can actually be a positive contribution to political discourse. Geer makes the case for Brooke.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Marc Leepson is the author of Flag: An American Biography. If, as he suggests, the current flag debate is partly a product of election year politicking, that's nothing new. For instance, Old Glory was mobilized in the 1988 presidential campaign when George Bush Senior attacked Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis for vetoing a bill mandating the Pledge of Allegiance. Never mind that the state Supreme Court said the measure was unconstitutional. It made Dukakis look bad in those all-important 30-second spots. Attack ads are regularly condemned as a plague on the body politic, but political scientist John Geer argues that negative ads can make a positive contribution to political discourse. He put that argument, along with lots of charts quantifying the content of 44 years of presidential campaign ads, in his new book, called In Defense of Negativity. John Geer, welcome to the show... 

JOHN GEER: Thank you for having me.... more   download audio