A successful attack ad has three components.
- It weakens your opponents voting base. If the candidate has personal habits that are offensive to a large segment of his or her voting base it will highlight those habits and cause apathy in those voters, keeping them more likely to head to the voting booth come election day.
- It reinforces a characterization about that candidate that is observable and generally distasteful to independent or swing voters.
- It kicks them where they are supposedly strongest.
- The viewer doesn't have to think too hard about overwrought explanations or wonky content.
Here is an example of an attack ad against John McCain that I put together last night:
Starting with a quote about his gambling habits, this ad hits the evangelical conservative voter who is generally opposed to gambling. Moving to the scroll of general quotes that highlight his anger management issues, the ad puts doubt into the minds of independent voters regarding his capacity to be even headed during a crisis. The final shot ties his penchant for risky behavior with his anger management issues and simply speculates on what could be the ultimate price, while also questioning what is supposed to be McCain's strength-- his abilities to be an effective foreign policy decision-maker. Finally, there are no links to bills, past votes, or overly complex issues. It simply states: McCain gambles, McCain is angry, if McCain is president he'll have access to nuclear weapons.
See, being Karl Rove is easy!