It works, but it destroys our Democracy in the process. It’s the oldest trick in the book, if you can’t convince people that you’ve got the better ideas, convince them that your opponent sucks. Unfortunately, negative advertising does one thing and one thing alone…it depresses voter turnout. In 2004, 210 million people were eligible to vote, 120 million people voted. That means 90 million people picked “none of the above”, 50% more than picked Bush or Kerry. In fact, in every election America has ever had, “none of the above” has won. Why? Because by the time we get to the election you’ve got 40% of the population that doesn’t trust either candidate, and doesn’t perceive that either will do anything for them. In a real Democracy, we’d actually debate positions rather than “accidentally” mispronounce our opponents’ names so it sounds like the name of a terrorist in order to scare off potential supporters of the other guy.