Challenge: Democrats party of negativity

By which I mean have the Democrats be the party of attack ads, ruthless primary tactics, and Rovianism sans Karl. POD 1973.
 
Perhaps a resurgent Southern Democrat movement in the mid-seventies. The religious right joins with them, and the progressives and liberals bolt forming the New Democrats. By the late 70s you have three parties (in the OTL we got close to this with both John Anderson and the libertarians): the Republicans (a coalition of big business and libertarians much the same as OTL) the New Democrats (social liberals), and the Conservative Democrats (a coalition of old southern democrats, pro-labor populists, and religious rightists). The POD I would propose is that early in the Relgious Right movement Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Francis Schaffer all get together and decide it would be better to take over the Democratic party rather than the Republican. Thus we have a strongly negative Conservative Democratic party attacking liberals, feminists, gay rights, free trade, big business, and outsourcing in a wonderous (or horrendous, depending on your point of view) coalition.
 
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I just want to clarify the above post. I'm obviously stating that you need a certain ideology, presented in a certain way, to breed negativity. It can't just be personalities. But also most ideologies can be presented positively. Evangelical politics CAN be presented positively: it's just that they aren't in our society. Instead of evangelicals telling America what they were for in the early 80s, they told us what they were against. Instead of attacking gays and abortionists, Falwell/Robertson could have promoted feeding the hungry and building crisis pregnancy centers. The same can be said for what I like to call "radical centrism": the kind of populism charachterized by Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader. Instead of telling us what they were for: strong labor unions, small business, and the Constitution, they told us what they were against: immigration, big business, and the military industrial complex. This is not so much a difference in ideology, as a difference in approach, and that makes all the difference. Why is Ron Paul respected so much more than Pat Buchanan? They have basically the same positions. It's because Ron Paul has a so much more positive approach!
 

burmafrd

Banned
If you want negative look at Carville and company. Trying to blame this on Rove before he was even around is not good. Negativity was on both sides early on long before Rove. It amazes me how many think that is when it started. It really began I think in the 1980 campaign and grew from there.
 
If you want negative look at Carville and company. Trying to blame this on Rove before he was even around is not good. Negativity was on both sides early on long before Rove. It amazes me how many think that is when it started. It really began I think in the 1980 campaign and grew from there.

negative politics go way further back, back to the first days of the united States (Adams and Jefferson, anyone?). They sort of tailed off to a degree around the middle of the century, and then got reinvigorated and reinvented (you can probably trace modern negative campaigns back to the sixties, if you are so inclined).
 
This has already happened. Its just that their attack ads are often saying that the Republicans started the nasty attacks first, and they're simply fighting back. So it appears they're nicer.
 
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