The Campaign

Getting Down and Dirty On the eve of a critical round of primaries, candidates in both parties decide to accentuate the negative in their political ads

"We've struck gold in the Black Hills!" crowed Bob Kerrey after winning last week's South Dakota primary. The political payoff was slight: the Nebraska Democrat bagged only seven delegates. More important, his victory, with an impressive 40% of the vote, attracted contributions to his impoverished organization. But the money was not enough to allow Kerrey to take to other states the aggressive TV campaign he mounted in South Dakota. For three precious days, he was an unwilling pacifist in a political air war marked by sharply rising bitterness and intensity. The number of negative ads began to increase in proportion to...

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