Transcription – John Geer Interview

Q: Well, the ads that Super PACs or other independent groups run that are, as you say, even more negative on balance than the ones run by the candidates, are they also less evidence-based? Less — do they contain fewer explicit appeals?

GEER: Yeah.

Q: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Do they have a other virtues as sources of information than the campaign sponsored ads? Or is that something you haven’t had time —

GEER: I haven’t had time to look at that. The ones that I’ve seen, they do seem to have some sort of documentation. But that’s actually a really good question. [01:03:00] That’s worth somebody sorting out. There is — there was some work done by a woman at Dartmouth, Deb Brooks, where she tried to look at some of the issues such as that, but I don’t remember what she came down — she came down on. I’ve often thought it would be interesting to know what effect just the tagline that was required by the McCain-Feingold bill, what that’s had, an effect on advertising.

Q: The tagline.

GEER: Yeah. Saying, you know, even if I’m attacking Mike Nelson, I, you know, say, “I’m John Geer and I paid for this ad.” What effect that’s had, if any. We just don’t know. We know it’s shortened the ad a little bit, which in and of itself is probably a bad thing. But is it — because, you know, they have to say that. But, you know, is it a good — has it changed how people respond to the ads? You know, if it’s a group that says, you know, “Concerned Americans for a Better Future.” I don’t know how the public responds to — we just don’t know. It’s one of the things that — hopefully, there’s some eager young graduate student out there churning away at it.

Q: [01:04:00]You know, back to 2004, turnout was way up in 2004, even though —

GEER: It was negative.

Q: It was a negative campaign. Why do you think turnout was up?

GEER: Well, I mean, it was an engaging campaign. I think it’s part of [it was?] competitive. People understood the stakes. You know, there’s a — there’s actually a great — I mean, we know that turnout was declining. But it turned out that among the reasons why turnout was declining was how we were measuring it, because we were — we were taking voting age population, and that was our denominator. And then when people began to realize that that was inflated because of the number who weren’t eligible to vote, whether they be in prison or whether they were illegally in the country, that actually some of the decline was because we just didn’t have the right denominator.

Q: (inaudible) people who couldn’t vote.

GEER: Right. And so we need to adjust the measure. But even with that taken into account, 2004 was still up. And, you know, again, it gets back to the public thinking this mattered. And they responded accordingly. [01:05:00]The polarization in the political system may cause more people to turn out, because both sides see a huge amount of — you know, at stake. Whereas in 200 — let’s say 199– no, not 1996 — 1976, Ford, Carter, you know, how big a deal was it? But imagine you have Hillary Clinton versus Rand Paul in 2016. You know, you may get more turnout because people think it matters. And so one of the — you know, payoffs, benefits, however you want to think of a polarized system, may be more people turning out.

Q: Yeah. One last thing in your book that I wanted to ask you about, and that is you talk about — or you cite a common lament of those who criticize negativity in advertising, which is that it reduces the level of civility in our politics.

GEER: (laughter) Yeah.

Q: And therefore, you know, the level of [01:06:00] — the willingness of people to actually get together and make compromises and so on, or treat each other respectfully. Which, you have a very interesting take on this civility thing as it applies to, I think, government (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).

GEER: Yeah. I mean, I — you know, we — I worry — I mean, civility is important, and I don’t want to suggest that it’s not important. But I get worried when people constantly make calls for civility, because it’s, like, their way of trying to control the argument, and that they don’t want to have — let’s say you and I have real disagreements on issues. Well, maybe we need to have those disagreements rather than sweeping them under the rug. Unless they further that you’re the incumbent, or you control the levers of power, you want things to be civil because you don’t want things to change. And so that — you know, there are things that we disagree about collectively as a country that we need to have an airing about. I mean, the issues of, let’s say, abortion. I mean, it’s a tough issue. [01:07:00] But, you know, you can’t just say that we all agree and try to sweep those differences under the rugs. We need to have a full throttle discussion about those kinds of issues. So I worry that civility is invoked as a way to suppress debate. It needs to be based on evidence, it can’t be based on, you know, just random claims. And that’s what bothers me more, is that there seems to be a lack of appreciation on both sides of the spectrum for evidence. And there are certain things we can agree on. Think about the debate over global warming. And I say this not as a partisan. I mean, when 95% of scientists, you know, say that this is happening — now, exactly how much effect we can have or whatever, I’m not a scientist, so I can’t — to ignore that and to say that it’s silly, that’s what drives me crazy. It isn’t the nastiness of the debate, because there can be real differences. So I think civility — it’s not that I favor incivility, but when we do have serious disagreements, we have to have a full discussion of those disagreements. And they will [01:08:00] sometimes get nasty. Democracy isn’t for the fainthearted. It’s for those people who are willing to have an open discussion. Because if you do away with negativity, I guarantee you, you’re doing away with democracy. And so if you do away with incivility, you may be doing away with some disagreement. And we need to have those disagreements, we need to have those conversations, even if they’re unpleasant. I mean, think about what’s going on on campuses today about, you know, all the controversies going on with — with rape, and with sexual assault, etc., like that. There needs to be open conversation. We can’t just, you know, sweep those things under the rugs. It’s not fun, it’s not pleasant, but it has to happen. And so I worry that people use civility as a way to avoid the tough conversations that we need to have.