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Americans in recent years have become thoroughly disenchanted with our political campaigns, especially with campaign advertising and speeches. Each year, as November approaches, we are bombarded with visceral appeals that bypass substance, that drape candidates in the American flag but tell us nothing about what they'll do if elected, that flood us with images of PT-109 or Willie Horton, while significant issues--such as Kennedy's Addison's Disease or the looming S&L catastrophe--are left unexamined. And the press--the supposed safeguard of democracy--focuses on campaign strategy over campaign substance, leaving us to decide where the truth lies.
In Dirty Politics, campaign analyst Kathleen Hall Jamieson provides an eye-opening look at political ads and speeches, showing us how to read, listen to, and watch political campaigns. Jamieson provides a sophisticated (and often humorous) analysis of advertising technique, describing how television ads use soft focus, slow motion, lyrical or patriotic music (Reagan used "I'm Proud to be an American") to place a candidate in a positive light, or quick cuts, black and white, videotape, and ominous music (for instance, the theme from "Jaws") to portray the opposition. She shows how ads sometimes mimic news spots to add authenticity (Edwin Edwards, in his race against David Duke, actually used former NBC correspondent Peter Hackis, who would begin an ad saying "This is Peter Hackis in Baton Rouge"). And Jamieson points out that consultants create inflammatory ads hoping that the major networks will pick them up and run them as news, giving the ad millions of dollars of free air time. The most striking example would be the Willie Horton ad, which the press aired repeatedly (as an example of negative advertising) long after the ad had ceased running. (In fact, it never ran on the major networks as an ad, only as news.)
From a colorful, compact history of negative campaigning from Eisenhower to the present, to an in-depth commentary on the Willie Horton ads, to an up-to-the-minute analysis of the Duke-Edwards campaign in Louisiana, Dirty Politics is both a fascinating look at underhanded campaigning as well as a compelling argument for fair, accurate, and substantive campaigns. It is a book that all voters should read before they vote again.

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Publishers Weekly Review

Packed with examples of superficial or sleazy campaigning from the last three decades, this study presents a disturbing picture of the dismal state of U.S. presidential campaigns, and how to change them. Jamieson ( Packaging the Presidency ) convincingly argues that television news about electoral contests is becoming increasingly ad-like. Conversely, she maintains, candidates are learning to act, speak and think in TV's terms, proffering visual, telegraphic sound bites and tailoring their speeches, interviews and press conferences toward getting ad-like coverage. Dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communication, Jamieson delivers stinging barbs as she moves from the 1960s (``Kennedy and Johnson entranced the public with a shell game'') to an extended analysis of Bush's Willie Horton ads and David Duke's campaign. Illustrated with stills from TV ads, her critique is marred by dense, academic prose, but her call for accurate, substantive reporting, and her insistence that candidates be held responsible for their promises, are worth heeding. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

The growing political importance of the electronic media has led to increasing scholarly attention. Jamieson's book makes a valuable contribution to this new literature by analyzing the rise of negative advertising. In her analysis she looks not only at paid advertising, but also at how that paid advertising has been able to insinuate itself into regular news broadcasts. Her analysis of the tendency of the press to incorporate unchallenged advertising claims is particularly telling, and her proposals for reform are carefully presented. The book is well written and thoroughly researched. It incorporates interesting still pictures from the adds under discussion as well as useful quantitative data. Unfortunately the presentation of the quantitative data, but not the pictures, is marred by banishing it to the appendix. A university press need not be so squeamish about incorporating tables, which incidently consist largely of trend lines, into the text. Advanced undergraduate, graduate, and general collections. A. D. McNitt; Eastern Illinois University

Booklist Review

Can modern presidential campaigns allow voters to participate in an honest debate--or are we doomed to quadrennial assaults by unscrupulous political advertisers? A historian of political rhetoric, Jamieson raises serious concerns about how both the candidates and the media have substituted sound-bite theatrics for substantive engagement with national issues. A detailed analysis reveals how TV ads (for example, the Bush ads linking Dukakis to Willie Horton and ridiculing Dukakis' tank ride) can obscure a candidate's actual positions while mesmerizing broadcasters and reporters. Contemporary politicians did not invent deceptive claims or slanderous attacks, as the author shows in her survey of savage nineteenth-century politicking. But modern media give shrewd tacticians new power over unwary voters and journalists. Recalling that as recently as 1980 Americans witnessed a national campaign of prolonged and serious exchanges, Jamieson refuses to despair. Her book should be required reading for candidates and commentators alike. ~--Bryce Christensen

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About the Author:
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of Packaging the Presidency, Eloquence in an Electronic Age, and other books on political discourse.