Count me among those skeptical that the “Aqua Buddha” ad Jack Conway was running in the Kentucky Senate race backfired and cost him any chance of winning the election. There’s two data points used as evidence for this theory: polls show voters didn’t like the ad, and Conway’s own stock dropped right around the same time.
Neither point is convincing on its own nor taken together. Voters almost never approve of attack ads. That’s not the proper measure of the effectiveness of an attack ad. As for Conway’s drop, maybe it was Aqua Buddha, but I’m not sure how you isolate that factor from the myriad other variables in the stretch run of a campaign, like the $4 million in outside money in Kentucky to attack Conway (or the fact that no one gave Dems a shot at picking up this seat until Rand Paul won the GOP nomination).
TPM Reader JW has a similar take:
The biggest reason his negatives have increased is because of the constant third-party, NRSC and Rand Paul negative attacks. I don’t watch much broadcast TV, and when I do it is on Tivo. And I still see 3-4 ads a day with the exact same message: obamacare, debt/spending, medicare cuts. Who knows how close the race would be if the aqua buddha ad never ran. But one thing is certain: when Paul was the focus of the race, Jack had a chance. When Jack/Obama were the focus, it was over. That more than anything else over the last 2 weeks has been the problem I would guess, that the outside $$ really poured in.
JW may be on to something there. It makes intuitive sense to me. It’s at least as significant of a variable as the Aqua Buddha ad. But conventional wisdom is already calcifying around the idea that Jack Conway did himself in with that attack ad. And it makes you wonder. When Republicans run tough ads, it’s brilliant strategy that shows they’re strong and ruthless. When Democrats run them, they “backfire.” It’s too simple to say that the conventional wisdom denies Democrats the useful tool of tough ads, but I think there’s something to that.
