{"id":28454,"date":"2018-03-04T20:46:29","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T20:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=28454"},"modified":"2018-03-04T20:46:29","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T20:46:29","slug":"negativity-sells-big-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=28454","title":{"rendered":"Negativity sells … big time!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

I have lamented the extreme and sometimes harsh negativity I’ve been seeing of late along the 2018 midterm election trail.<\/p>\n

However, I am no Pollyanna on this stuff. I know how it works. I know that negativity is a big draw to voters looking for ways to help them make up their minds on who gets their vote.<\/p>\n

Human beings are drawn<\/em> to negativity. It’s like the car wreck you see on the side of the road as you drive by: You don’t want<\/em> to look at it, but you crane your neck anyway.<\/p>\n

So it is with negative political advertising. I’ve also noted how state Sen. Kel Seliger is seeking to stay positive as he campaigns for re-election to the Texas Senate. I do wish him well in that effort and I hope he succeeds.<\/p>\n

Let’s get real for just a minute.<\/p>\n

I have a quick anecdote from my career in print journalism.<\/p>\n

It was fairly routine for me to run into someone who would say something like this: “Hey, I really liked what you wrote the other day.” I would respond, “And what was that?” The person would say, “Oh, let me think. Dang!<\/em> I can’t remember what it was. I’ll remember and get back to you.”<\/p>\n

However, if someone would say, “You know, I didn’t<\/em> like what you wrote.” I would ask, “What was it about?” The person then could quote the editorial or column back to me virtually verbatim, picking apart every sentence or paragraph and telling me why I was all wet or that I didn’t know what I was talking about.<\/p>\n

That is the truth. So help me.<\/p>\n

Yes, negativity sells. The marketplace of ideas thrives on people’s dander getting riled up.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have lamented the extreme and sometimes harsh negativity I’ve been seeing of late along the 2018 midterm election trail. However, I am no Pollyanna on this stuff. I know how it works. I know that negativity is a big draw to voters looking for ways to help them make up their minds on who … Continue reading Negativity sells … big time!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[7490,7629],"class_list":["post-28454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news","tag-2018-election","tag-negativity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28455,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28454\/revisions\/28455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}