Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

In business, it's considered bad form to use negative advertising to attack their competitors though they often do comparisons showing their product is better than the market leaders. However, there's no law against it, and groups sometimes advertise against cigarettes or fossil fuels, but they can't lie, or misinterpret the data without getting sued. Not so with politics; anything can be said about anybody; half-truths, lies, even personal attacks have no consequences. Plus, politics predisposes voters to accept vicious innuendo and lies about the opposition.

In a political campaign, the candidate has to spend money to promote themselves, often working alone without any sincere support, but many negative forces will work against them for free, easily overwhelming whatever meager resources and time a fledgling candidate can bring to bear. It's basically a huge inertia of negative energy that must first be overcome before any positive information can get out, if it ever does, and even then it's always overshadowed by the negative. It's no wonder people are suspicious and disdainful of elected officials because the majority of their exposure to them is negative.