The Negative News About Positive Political Ads

Near the end of Tuesday’s “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” session at the Law School, Gousha asked Mike Tate, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, and Reince  Priebus, chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party, whether they thought candidates can win while running positive campaigns.

Neither directly answered the question from Gousha, the Law School’s Distinguished Fellow in Law and Public Policy. But Tate came closer.  You have to have to draw contrasts with your opponent, he said. And when one campaign launches an ad that is arguably negative, “it’s an arms race,” Tate said.  If you don’t respond, you risk losing. Voters remember negative ads, Tate said.

Priebus responded by criticizing Democratic campaigns for playing what he called “small ball” this fall, focusing on minor matters that they could use to attack Republicans instead of on major issues, like jobs, the economy, and the growth of government spending.

What neither said to Gousha’s question was, yes, you can win by staying positive.  

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Why Do Women Hate Negotiating?

Last week, the Washington Post had an article on its blog with this title reviewing the depressing research that women “don’t ask” at the same rate as men and exploring why this might be so.  After all, as the author notes, women are negotiating every day at home — why do we choose not to do this in the workplace?  Selena Rezvani notes that her own research on top executives shows that top women learned to negotiate through experience and that

Negotiating isn’t just one of several leadership competencies, it is the most important tool at women’s disposal.  A woman can work on being well networked or technically brilliant, but without the ability to ask, she has nothing.

I couldn’t agree more — we all need to be negotiating more effectively. 

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Best of the Blogs: One Lump or Two?

November 2 is fast approaching, and the nation is awaiting the election results to see whether the Tea Party Movement will be revealed to be a force in American politics or an over-hyped media sensation.  This week’s “Best of the Blogs” feature provides everything a political junkie needs to learn more about the Tea Party Movement.

The obvious starting point might be Butch Cassidy’s (or Paul Newman’s) famous question, “Who are those guys?”  Amy Gardner at the Washington Post tries to answer that question here (hat tip to Steven Easley).  Despite her best efforts, a definitive picture of the Movement remains elusive:

[A] new Washington Post canvass of hundreds of local tea party groups reveals a different sort of organization, one that is not so much a movement as a disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the political process.

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