Smear Tactics

America is no stranger to smear tactics after the 2012 presidential campaign.  Both parties were ruthless in undermining each other’s credibility in whatever way possible.  President Obama’s time as president was challenged by personal attacks and his incumbent campaign was no exception.  The purpose of smear tactics is to turn voters against a particular candidate by whatever means necessary.  This typically devolves into attacks against personal character that have little or nothing to do with actual campaign issues (Campbell).  It is ethically sketchy, at best, and often works against the candidate employing it as much as it does against the target.

One example of this that bridged the attacks against President Obama during his term and those employed by the Republican party in preparation for the 2012 election was a seemingly non-partisan claim that President Obama wrongfully claimed credit for killing Osama bin Laden and that he did not properly credit the American military (Hosenball).  The American public has heard one personal attack against President Obama after another and the intensity only increased during the campaign.  The Republican party was not the only one doing it, either.  Both sides participated and everyone got sick of it.

Personally for me, the effects of a smear campaign damage the legitimate political process.  A voting population is supposed to be informed, but when most of the information provided to them is just caustic and meaningless, they are either poorly equipped to vote or completely disinterested in the entire process and just don’t vote -reasons why voting should be compulsory.  Avoiding smear tactics is more easily said than done, though.  Even in my experiences with student government, I have come up against it and, regrettably, resorted to it myself.  In more than one student debate I have resorted to basic insults in response to goading from my opponent.

There is an instinctive reaction when personally insulted and that reaction is to retaliate in kind.  At that point, the only legitimate value of a smear campaign is who can most gracefully remove themselves from it first and return to the issue.  More realistically, it is a question of who can more completely crush the public image of their opponent.  Most voters don’t need help forming personal opinions, so it would be nice to see more attention paid to actual politics and less to personal sparring on a political stage.

Works Cited

Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos. Media & culture: an introduction to mass communication. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. Print. 

Hosenball, Mark. "Obama campaign accuses Republicans of smear tactics over bin Laden leaks." Business & Financial News. N.p., 15 Aug. 2012. Web. 4 Dec. 2012. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/15/us-usa-campaign-binladen-ad-idUSBRE87E01F20120815>.