Campaign ads rival fighting in junior high

The negative attack ads this campaign season are manipulative, shallow and often untrue. Still, I like to watch, because the tactics used in them were lifted directly from junior high school when all was fair in fighting.

For one week, I closely watched the ads with my junior high school thesis in mind. Here are the tactics I uncovered in the Washington state races:

• Draw-Devil-Horns-On-Their- Picture Tactic.

In junior high, it is essential to look cool. One effective fighting tactic is to locate a bad photo of an enemy and draw devil horns – or something worse – on that photo.

In the campaign ads, the adult equivalent is finding a photo in which the opponent looks like a goofball. Usually, the candidate’s mouth is open, as if just about to drool.

If a bad photo is not easily available, the opponent’s photo can be overlayed with an odd-colored screen, making the candidate look sick or sinister.

Attack ads against Patty Murray, candidate for U.S. senator, employ this strategy. In some, she’s green. In others, yellow. Meanwhile, in an anti-George Nethercutt ad, he’s shown slumping in a corner like a galumph.

It’s hard to make Cathy McMorris, candidate for the U.S. House, look physically unattractive, so maybe that’s why the attack ads don’t bother. They use the same black-and-white photos McMorris uses in her own campaign-sponsored ads.

• Use-Your-Hated-Name Tactic.

In junior high, teachers know the birth certificate names of students and call them during roll the first day. Some students hate those given names and never use them. But enemies remember the names and use them in spiteful ways.

Chris Gregoire used Christine Gregoire as attorney general because she said it sounded more formal, but only her mother calls her this in reality. She switched to Chris for her gubernatorial race. Attack ads call her “Christine” over and over again.

• Your-Mom-Has-A-Big-Butt Tactic.

The attack ad that has generated the most outrage in the U.S. House 5th District campaign is one in which Don Barbieri’s late father, Lou, is mentioned in a negative context. I believe it got so much reaction because it employed the lowest form of junior high fighting. Adolescents can bitch about their own parents, but when other kids do it, watch out.

• Fake-Outrage Tactic.

In junior high, a small act gets reported as if it is the worst thing imaginable. This hysteria usually begins with the words, “Oh my God!”

Listen to the narrators in the attack ads. They say the zinger line with outrage that borders on hysteria. Examples: “And this makes her qualified?!” And “It was just plain wrong!”

• Teacher-Says Tactic.

In junior high, kids complain about their teachers all the time. Yet if they really want to invoke authority, they threaten peers with teachers’ rules. “The vice principal says…”

Most people aren’t crazy about journalists, yet the attack ads use the words of reporters and editors as the ultimate authority. The ads highlight headlines from articles or key words, such as “scandalous,” taken from editorials and stories in the Associated Press, the Seattle papers and The Spokesman-Review.

• Your-Friend-Is-A-Jerk-And-You- Are-Too Tactic.

Peers mean everything in junior high. You are who you hang out with. So if an enemy really wants to be mean, he or she attacks your boyfriend or girlfriend or clique. Look at the people pictured with the candidate being attacked. There’s always a hidden message.

Dino Rossi, gubernatorial candidate, is shown in one attack ad at a dinner with Vice President Dick Cheney. The scene is shown in slow motion, giving it that Sasquatch-lumbering-through-the-woods feel.

Watching the campaign ads through a junior high lens is the only way I can stay sane because – oh my God! We have 20 more days of attack ads! Somehow, that’s just plain wrong.