West County Issue / Negative Campaigning...

James Monahan, City Council member

“I’ve been in five elections, and this is by far the worst. It’s been more negative and the negative attacks have been much more personal. I’m estimating that I lost about 10% of voters, so the negative ads hurt me, but I didn’t spend time responding to them. Negative campaigning turns voters off. It leaves a shadow over the election, but most people probably will forget about the accusations. I don’t know what the long-term effect on voters will be, but negative campaigning might turn away potential candidates in the future. I don’t take it personally. You get used to having people disagree with you in this business. I’ve received hundreds of calls, though, saying they were shocked and sorry about the personal attacks mounted against me by Mr. Francis.”

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Richard Francis, Lawyer and treasurer of the Anybody but Monahan campaign

“This campaign was somewhat more negative than previous campaigns because you had three participants in the negative campaigning--Venturans for Better Government, Ray Ellison of M&M; Management Co. and myself. It had an effect that showed in the results. The one candidate that didn’t have any attacks against her, Rosa Lee Measures, got the most votes, and one of the incumbents who was attacked, Todd Collart, was turned out. The other two incumbents came in third and fourth. Those results show that if someone has a record that can’t be smeared, they’ll do better than someone who’s susceptible to attacks. There are those that argue that these ads merely give the voters more information, and the voters are the ones who decide if the attacks are valid or not. If nothing else, my campaign against Monahan helped level the playing field. It’s unfortunate that negative campaigning has come to Ventura, but that seems to be where the game is played now.”

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Todd Collart, Outgoing City Council member

“In my 20 years of experience in the city, this election was lower and meaner than any other. The negative campaigning seemed much more intense and sophisticated than in the past, and it lasted a lot longer. I had a different point of view than most in that it may have been a factor in my defeat, but there’s little good that comes from negative campaigning. The image of government and public officials in general is depreciated, and it turns people off. Negative campaigns have the biggest effect on uninformed or middle-of-the-road voters and once it’s out there it’s hard to defend against. It’s especially hard to defend when the press lets this stuff go with little scrutiny. There was never any independent assessment of where the truth lay, so we were left trying to counter the image painted by people with millions to spend.”

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John McWherter, Former mayor

“It’s a fine line between mudslinging and educating the voters about a candidate’s record. It’s educational when it’s not done in a derogatory way. Venturans for Responsible Government had a lot of negative ads, but they got most of their information from the public record. Of course there’s a lot more in the record than how someone voted on one or two issues. A few people out there are notorious for bashing council members with unfair ads, and this is not the first time they’ve done it. I think, though, that negative campaigns get people stirred up and interested in the election. It doesn’t do the people being slandered much harm. In many cases it gives them good exposure and name recognition--essential for a City Council race. This kind of thing happened two years ago and six years ago, and it’s happened before that. It’s usually done by the same people who just don’t like government and like attacking incumbents.”

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Beverly Benton, Political consultant and director of Benton Public Relations

“Negative ads do confuse people, but their effect depends on the sophistication of the voters. If people don’t know a candidate and they see ads attacking them, that could hurt the candidate. But a candidate can counterattack by going out there and reinforcing their image with voters. There’s a theory that 10% to 15% of the electorate are susceptible to the ‘rumor vote,’ so some campaigners use negative ads to tap into those voters. Negative campaigning is nothing new, and the candidates that lacked an institutional memory were caught unprepared. They were hurt. Informed and savvy candidates were prepared. They anticipated the attacks. They did a lot of work to counter them. They went out and reinforced their reputation with the voters.”