Going negative

December 25, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times

DES MOINES, Iowa

With no snow on the ground in this unseasonably warm state, the only blizzard Iowans are facing is the daily onslaught of negative political ads as they turn on their televisions, tune in their radios or visit their mailboxes. And they aren’t safe when they pick up the phone or fire up their Internet connections either.

“Oh goodness,” said Jill Jepsen, 57, a retired department-store employee who lives in Oskaloosa and supports former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “I just don’t listen to it. I can’t listen to it. It makes me sick.”

But others are tuning in. And the primary victim is Gingrich, who became the whipping boy of the Republican presidential field as soon as he surged to the front of the pack last month. Gingrich’s considerably long record and messy personal life have made him a juicy target. Now, his commanding lead has shrunk and he is clumped at the top of the polls with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

This year, traditional candidate-made ads (“I’m so and so, and I approved this message”) have been buried under a barrage from independent “super PACs,” created last year after a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed them. The sheer amount of political advertising is expected to reach record levels because super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money.

Some think the ads have gotten not only more plentiful but also more brutal, although going negative on an opponent on the eve of the first presidential nomination voting is as Iowan as the state fair’s pork chop on a stick.

“Everyone can deplore negative advertising, but in pure Machiavellian end-justifies-the-means sense, they work,” said Iowa political science professor Dennis Goldford.

The super PACs, which raise money from corporations, unions and individuals, are often run by former campaign staffers but are not permitted to coordinate with the campaigns.

In one 30-minute period Wednesday evening, it was possible to see half a dozen political spots — either by candidates or super PACS — mostly negative. An ad for Paul accused Gingrich of “serial hypocrisy,” and an ad by Texas Gov. Rick Perry claimed Gingrich “got rich” through ties to Freddie Mac and dismissed both Gingrich and Romney as political insiders.

Direct mail pieces attack Gingrich for a TV spot he made about global warming with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In one piece by Romney’s allies, Santa Claus holds “Barack Obama’s Christmas list” with only one wish: “Newt Gingrich as the Republican nominee for 2012. Please Santa!”

The devastating, well-funded attacks on Gingrich also have unleashed a war of words among the candidates.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets website, which tracks political spending, the pro-Romney group Restore Our Future has spent $2.5 million attacking Gingrich, $1.4 million of it in the past week.

That makes Gingrich by far the most besieged candidate of the 2012 presidential cycle. Even President Obama has generated only $1.28 million in spending on negative ads, though far more will come in the general election. One ad-analysis company, Kantar Media, said that Iowa airwaves had been clogged with more than 1,200 anti-Gingrich messages in the past several weeks.

The campaign’s relatively late start in Iowa is at least partly responsible for the current spate of attacks on Gingrich. When he surged into the lead last month, there was so little time left before the voting on Jan. 3 that rival campaigns went immediately to the political equivalent of Defcon 1.

By the time the attacks on Gingrich were conceived, made and unleashed, his opponents “had already accomplished the job,” Grubbs said. “Now it’s overkill.”