fandomhigh | Political Campaigning (Thursday, April 6, 4th period)

"You've been watching political ads and have spent a few months learning about your candidates. Today we talk about going negative." He gave them a smirk. "Or, as I prefer to think about it--the hard positive. You're not necessarily telling the voters that your opponent hates his mother and kicks puppies in his spare time--though if he does and you've got tape of it, for the love of God, use it--you're just telling them things about him that he'd rather you not mention."

He clasped his hands together. "Going negative can include everything from bad votes to extramarital affairs. And the voters say that they hate that kind of thing." He raised an eyebrow. "Polling data indicates otherwise. Eventually, yeah, your numbers will take a hit because you're being mean or whatever. But in the short term it does some serious damage to your opponent."

He walked around the room. "So the question becomes when do you go negative? Do you wait for them to start it, then strike back? Do you wait for them to start it and then have a press conference deploring their lack of propriety and whatever?"

He waved his hands at the class. "Or will you be one of those campaigns that never goes negative and then gets its ass kicked? Discuss."

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Where do you draw the line? Is there a line?

Angel signed in, looking very broody and tired.

He also looked like he had wee tiny bunnies clinging to the bottoms of his pant legs.

there was a reason for that (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memadd.bml?journal=notstakedyet&itemid=58068).

Josh blinked. And blinked again. Then grinned.

"Glad to see you've made some friends," he said, pointing.

"You know," Angel said, as he took a seat, "I just want to know who taught them to hug."

A few of the bunnies tried to climb higher so that they could hug his knees.

"I had lemurs in my office doing the Hustle yesterday," Josh said. "I've stopped asking questions."

Angel looked down at the wee tiny bunnies.

They looked back, twitching their wee tiny noses.

"Yeah, I don't want to know if these guys can dance."

"Depends on the type of negative campaigning," Angel pointed out. He tried to take notes with a wee tiny bunny doing its best to give his pen a wee tiny bear hug. "You can start negative without anybody noticing you're doing it."

"Bet they know the Bunny Hop," Josh replied with a grin.

As if on cue, three of the bunnies scampered up Angel's pant leg, got on his desk, and did a wee little Bunny Hop.

"Okay that's adorably disturbing," Angel said.

"It really, really is," Josh agreed, staring.

Rory signed in, full of omgwoe...until she spotted Angel and the bunnies.

Then she cracked a real, bright smile for the first time in days.

One of the bunnies scampered to the edge of Angel's desk. Its wee tiny front paws waved in the air as it tried to reach out to Josh.

"Aww, sir, I think it likes you," Angel said, enjoying this far too much.

"It's still wrong," Rory said stubbornly. "It's unethical, even if no one catches it."

"Separate issue," Angel said. Then, because he caught her smile before, he reached over with his pen and gently shook the wee tiny bunny into her lap.

Josh held out a hand and was soon being hugged by a wee tiny bunny.

"Leo would be laughing his ass off if he could see me," he said, smiling in spite of himself.

He got a sudden gleam in his eyes. "Wonder if we could convince these little guys to head up to the Capitol? I bet the Speaker could use a, um, wee tiny hug."

"We could probably get a swarm of 'em," Angel said. "I bet they breed like - " Angel snapped his finger, pretending to forget " - whaddyacallits."

Rory stared down at the bunny that had begun to cling to her side, smiling a little. "It's not a separate issue. They're intrinsic. The ethics affect the motivation, and if there's no motive then there's no need to make an ad at all."

Josh snickered. "Or those Trubble things, like on Galaxy Quest."

His eyes twinkled. "I believe we have a patriotic duty, no, a moral responsibility, to brighten up the House of Representatives this way. I'll call Fed Ex."

"I'm saying whether or not it works is a separate issue from whether it's wrong," Angel said. "The ultimate motivation is to win. You've decided to make keeping your ability to look at yourself in the mirror an additional goal to that. Which is fine. But that'll work on a different principle."

"Think we'll need to use packing peanuts?"

Logan signed in, still looking a little pale from his bout of flu yesterday.

"Do they have wee tiny packing peanuts?" Josh asked as the bunny made itself comfortable on his shoulder.

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Political Campaigning (Thursday, April 6, 4th period)

Sign in (April 6)

Negative Campaigning

After class

OOC

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Negative Campaigning

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Negative Campaigning

Re: Negative Campaigning

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Negative Campaigning

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Negative Campaigning

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)

Re: Sign in (April 6)