On the recordJuly 16, 2012
That is a fascinating development. I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but I will try. My recollection is that before the super PACs kicked off with all this, 9 percent of the ads were negative in the last election cycle, at a time when 78 percent, I want to say, were negative--or 70 percent. It went from 9 percent being negative the cycle before--the Presidential cycle before--to 70 percent being negative now. That is nearly eight times as much negativity--more than half, nearly three-quarters, where it was less than 1 in 10 before--an explosion of negativity. So we know that is happening. The other thing we know is happening is it is misleading. It is not accurate. It is deceptive. The Annenberg Institute has done a study of the top four outside spenders--outside political spenders that aren't campaigns or parties--these special influence manipulating machines. The top four--they looked at their ads and, if I remember the figure correctly, 76 percent of them contained information that was deceptive.
