Tom Lyons Column

On February 13, 2005, Sarasota Herald Tribune columnist Tom Lyons wrote the following:


Civic league's candidate pledge could give negativity a bad rap

They've all signed The Pledge.

According to the Sarasota County Civic League, all seven of the candidates for two Sarasota City Commission seats have promised, in writing, to "avoid negative campaign advertising."

We'll see. I suspect that for one or more of these candidates, this pledge will be as binding as abstinence-until-marriage pledges seem to be for many teenagers. That is, it will work until a seductive campaign adviser or inner voice coos: "Come on; everybody is doing it."

But actually, I don't want candidates to avoid being "negative."

The league defines political ads as negative if they "violate the core values of compassion, honesty, responsibility, fairness and respect. Specifically, candidates have pledged to avoid emotional attack ads that degrade the tenor of public discourse, or are based (on) deception or rancor."

If that were the correct definition, I wouldn't quibble. But I wish the league wouldn't include deceptive, unfair, and dishonest ads under the label "negative."

Lying about opponents is dirty politics, and bad. But being critical of an opponent -- being negative -- isn't always a bad thing. It can be essential.

Local government has had some office holders who overdo negativity, or just do it badly. But overall, local government suffers more from too much smiling along when malarkey is being sold. I prefer those who speak up when peddlers are pushing snake oil.

Dirty politics bothers me as much as it bothers anyone in the league, I suspect. And I'm bothered that, no matter how many people say they feel the same, the dirtiest attack ads still seem to work.

But that doesn't mean the only honorable alternative is being cheery and never "being negative." Candidates can be reasonably respectful and honest, while telling voters exactly why they shouldn't vote for someone.

When they do, the opponent may say it is a dirty attack campaign. That doesn't make it so.

The civic league's own announcement about the pledge provides a clue about the value of honest negativity.

That announcement says the league interviews candidates for local office as a service to members and the public. It says it does not endorse candidates, but does evaluations that "rate the qualifications of the candidates."

Well, the league rates three of the seven candidates as "well qualified," including the two incumbents in the race. Three more, all challengers, got a damned-with-faint-praise "qualified."

One challenger, John Fulton, got a rating of "not recommended."

Not recommended. Sounds negative to me.

If the league doesn't quite advise you on who it thinks you should vote for, it does advise voters on who they should not vote for, obviously.

I'm not saying that's bad. Not at all. People are free to accept, doubt or even scoff at the ratings, and the very idea of any group being totally nonpartisan and objective. As with newspaper endorsements, voters can take the ratings or leave them, but there's sure nothing wrong with evaluating the qualifications of candidates.

Still, I'd fault the league's announcement for revealing so little -- nothing, actually -- about what judgment calls and specific factors led to each candidate's rating.

The members might figure not listing a candidate's perceived shortcomings is the way to avoid being, um, negative. They might think it seems more polite and nonrancorous to leave it at just one or two words. Like "not recommended."

It isn't. It is just uninformative. It provides no basis at all for assessing the league's judgment.