Poison Politics: Are Negative Campaigns Destroying Democracy?

• Author: Schier, Steven E.

The recent campaign madness detailed in this fall's Senate hearings has turned the sins and shortcomings of our elections system into the topic du jour. As such, one might look with high hopes to Victor Kamber, veteran Democratic campaign consultant, to provide some valuable lessons about what has gone wrong in our electoral process. One would be disappointed.

In Poison Politics, Kamber takes a valiant stab at providing insight into our political process, but ultimately comes up short because his arguments need more elaboration and his book lacks a disciplined scope. Kamber, in fits and starts, advances two main points: First, that certain despicable campaign practices have soured the public on politics. Second, that Republicans have poisoned electoral politics and public policy since 1980. The first argument is easier to define and sustain than the second. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the book's sprawling 18 chapters is devoted to advancing the "evil Republicans" charge. And since Kamber offers little in this indictment that kindred observers on the left have not already stated more cogently, many of his chapters make for a tedious, drearily familiar read. Those on left will encounter an echo chamber of their own thoughts; those on the right have surely heard all this before.

Kamber's strong liberalism leads him to frequent name-calling and questionable evidence to support his thesis. Republicans are guilty of "greedy Puritanism" and "grinch economics", under Ronald Reagan "the fabric of our nation quietly unraveled", and so forth. Much of this may be true, but Kamber can't be bothered with assembling evidence. As a campaign consultant, he seems to gain great satisfaction from rhetoric alone.

This is not to say that the book doesn't have some redeeming features. The chapters that bring Kamber's accumulated wisdom to bear on the subject of campaign practices are original and worth taking seriously. Kamber points out how far is too far when going negative, offering vivid examples from recent campaigns of attacks on candidates' character, race, gender, or sexual orientation that will make most readers' stomachs turn. Just about every example involves Republicans attacking Democrats. Is this a representative sample? It's hard to tell, but Kamber's choice of examples nicely fits the strong ideological spin of the book.

Some of Kamber's points about campaign ads, however, are questionable. He argues, without significant evidence, that...