Early in the campaign season, President Obama complained incessantly about the barrage of negative ads he would surely face from challenger Mitt Romney. He brought it up at virtually every campaign appearance. Here’s an example from July:
[youtube
“We’re about to get hit with an avalanche of negative ads,” Obama warned in fundraisers. He denounced such ads as contributing to an unhealthy atmosphere of cynicism among the electorate.
Well, the numbers are in for September, and it’s not even close. According to the Wesleyan Media Project, Barack Obama is the undisputed master of the negative ad. “6.3 percent of the Obama ads were positive, 20.3 percent showed contrasts between the two candidates, and 73.3 percent were negative – or straight-up attacks on Romney and his record,” says the report.
By contrast, “11.9 percent of Romney’s messages were positive, versus 52.1 percent that compared him to the president, and 36 percent that were negative attacks on Obama.”
