Now anybody here who knows me knows I am a card carrying Conservative. But today the Conservative Party of Canada rolled out a ton of attack ads against the Liberal Party and the NewDemocraticParty. Now this would be normal in an election but their is no election currently planned. These ads are apparently being released to bulster the Conservatives polling numbers to deter the opposition from calling an election.

But this is not soully a Canadian issue. Infact American politicians take attack ads to a whole new level. In Canada the worst thing that is said is a politician is power hungry but American politicians go even further calling politicians losers and such. I have seen some pretty horrible attack ads from America, Canada , Britian , Australia.

So today on the news they were talking about , do these attack ads really cause voters to vote differently? Will a voter who usually votes NDP vote Conservative because he saw an ad on TV telling him how horrible the NDP is? In America will a Republican vote Democrat because of an ad they see on TV.

Do you regardless of which country your from listen to attack ads? Do they sway who you are voting for? Do your friends change their votes on attack ads? Or are attack ads just immature and juvinile?

Aren't they mostly focused on the independents? >_>

Studies show that as long as they're focused on issues, they do work. Personal attacks tend to backfire, though.

Though even then only when you call people on it for being a personal attack.

For example when facing a female candiate, one of the best ways to attack them is to use sexist attacks on them if you know they won't fight back on it... studies show that unless the polticians directly call them sexist, they permantly effect how people think about said candidate.

It's why Hilarly Clinton lost to Obama.

jack layton is a coke head...why would i need to see an ad to know not to vote for the NDP?

Don't forget a vote for him would be wasted as he can't do shit anyways. Actually thats not entirely right he actually has some power because if the Conservatives meet his demands to save their Government he may actually be able to influence the direction Canada goes in.

I think they work.

In the UK, attack ads (and really, ads in general) are almost exclusively Conservative, from what I've seen. Some are absolutely disastrous, like the paralysed David Cameron staring at a camera. Actually, the attack ads are the best; for example, the ones with Gordon Brown doing his disturbing smile with the sarcastic statements (e.g. "I tripled the deficit, let me do it again"). There is nothing wrong with attacking the other parties, especially in a country where everyone hates all of the parties for one reason or another anyway.

They don't help me vote personally, because:

i) Election ads in general are completely different to government policy

ii) I'm never going to vote anything other than Tory anyway.

But they help people to vote, certainly.

This has got me thinking, and I realised - J.K. Rowling supports Labour. They should totally jump on that and have Dumbledoore endorse the party, or something... would bode far better than Ross Kemp.

EDIT: Oh, wait... http://www.facebook.com/pages/Education-cuts-Dumbledore-wouldnt-stand-for-this-shit/130957756963572

They can work, but that's something that needs to be determined on a candidate-to-candidate basis. Some people just can't be hit with attack ads successfully, some are good at playing the victim card, whereas some already have good enough PR that they can't be shaken

In a parliamentary system, i'd imagine you'd want to minimize noise if you fear an election being called, you'd want to cast the idea that things are just fine. Aggression, when you're on top, could merely be perceived as bullying.

When I see an attack ad, I vote for the other guy.