Interview with Dan Hazelwood

Our good friend Dan Hazelwood of Targeted Creative Communications is interviewed in National Journal's Hotline today. Here's an excerpt:

Negative campaigning -- good or bad?

It is good. It is the core of democracy. As James Madison wrote, "faction must be made to combat faction." Is it often done badly? Yes. Is it misused? Frequently. But everyone should have to answer the question, "why you, not your opponent?" It is a myth that negative messaging is a recent invention. The Bible goes pretty negative on Pharaoh and the snake gets a pretty high unfavorable rating by the end of Genesis. That's appropriate. The "Dudley Do-rights" that say all negative campaigning is somehow wrong and un-American want a world where they and their friends anoint people. What really needs to happen is to find a competent news media industry that will actually deliver news in large quantities in meaningful ways to the American Public, but sadly they are absent from our society today.