Obama's Negative Campaign?

For this blog post I had originally planned on updating my research and answering some of the questions I posed in my last blog.  However, browsing the Internet earlier this week I found that the Romney camp posted a graph illustrating the campaign tone of his opponent, President Obama.

While I cannot attest to the accuracy of the information shown in the picture, I do think it shows the importance campaigns put on their overall tone.  In this case, the Romney campaign is attempting to show that President Obama is resorting to a negative attack campaign, which is contrary to what one of the President’s chief advisors (David Axelrod) stated last week.

One thing that is easy to see is the dramatic shift in tone from mostly positive to now mostly negative.  Only President Obama and his campaign team can know the exact reason for that switch, though some experts theorize that campaigns will switch tone dramatically if they feel they are being ineffective or if their campaign is in danger (Lecture by Dan Schnur, 2007).  One other important aspect in the graph is the dollar amount attributed to TV ads by the Obama camp.  With nearly $40 million spent by the Obama campaign on TV ads in just over two months, it is easy to see why campaign advertising is such a critical and controversial aspect of campaign politics.