[Peace-discuss] On being nice

[C. G. Estabrook]

There was a brief remark or two at tonight's meeting anent deportment in
events such as the upcoming WILL Town Meeting, with implications for
political debates in general.  I was reminded of a point made in a recent
book by Martin P. Wattenberg, WHERE HAVE ALL THE VOTERS GONE? (Harvard UP,
2002).  The following summary appeared a not-very-good review in the
journal DISSENT (which I don't normally feel disposed to be nice to -- but
it makes the point):

"Other parts of his [Wattenberg's] research focus on the United States.
The stuff on the effect of negative ads is great. The favorite plaint
among politicians is that such ads depress turnout (the bromide serves
them well because it focuses attention away from the cracks in the
political system itself). Wattenberg proves that the very premise is
drivel: The most-cited work on the subject is based on controlled
experiments, not actual election data -- which in fact shows that the more
respondents remember ads, the higher their turnout is."

<http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/sp03/perlstein.htm>

  ==============================================================
  C. G. Estabrook
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana IL 61801 USA
  office: 217.244.4105 mobile: 217.369.5471 home: 217.359.9466   
  <www.carlforcongress.org>
  ===============================================================