This happened a long time ago but history repeats itself – and it’s repeating itself again today.

Twenty-eight years ago, in 1990, Jesse Helms’ campaign ran a negative TV ad about Harvey Gantt – and the ad didn’t work. We’d taken a poll which showed voters agreed with Jesse and disagreed with Harvey Gantt on the issue but when we told voters (in the ad) where Gantt stood it didn’t matter to them at all – so I asked the campaign’s pollsters and strategists, Why not?

There was a lot of head-scratching and frowning then one pollster said, Look Carter, you all have been running negative ads in North Carolina for a decade and you’ve spent who knows how many millions of dollars on those ads and they all look alike with the same music and a dramatic announcer and graphics with bright red captions so, now, the minute a voter sees one of those ads he thinks, ‘That’s just another political ad,’ and tunes it out.

He suggested making a comparison ad – without the melodrama and graphics and editorial comment – on the same issue that simply said, Here’s where Jesse Helms stands, here’s where Harvey Gantt stands, and that’s the choice.

That’s what we did. And this time the ad worked. The message got through.

The other day I looked at a lot of Super PAC ads and they looked and sounded a lot like that first ad we ran back in 1990 – that didn’t work. And, of course, during the last two elections here in North Carolina people have seen hundreds of those types of negative ads, so when they see one more they tune it out. What does work? Ads with people in them talking. And simple comparison ads.

To be continued…