Every election we hear endless analysis about who is going negative and who’s being pulled into the mud, as if there was some courtly golden age when politicians would not spew invective to gain any advantage. Attack Politics, by Dr. Emmett Buell Jr. and Lee Sigelman, confirms that, yes, presidential politics is nasty. But, in analyzing 17,000 campaign statements extracted from nearly 11,000 news items in the New York Times since 1960, they find that presidential campaigns have actually gotten a bit more civil. Buell counts the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon campaign as the most acrimonious and believes that Obama’s campaign might have been the least negative.

Buell also takes issue with the entire idea of “negative campaigning” as a pejorative term, saying that there’s really no way for a candidate to take on substantive issues or differentiate himself from an opponent without attacking their record and hitting potentially personal issues like ethics and judgement. What might be most surprising is that while the front runner is generally less negative than the candidates that are trailing, there are few strategic rules that seem to hold up race to race. If there’s a formula or a tried-and-true playbook, it hasn’t been found.

I asked Dr. Buell to talk about the book because campaigns are the most dynamic, high-stakes communication exercise their is. Buell and Sigelman go through the communications strategy/positioning/messaging of each presidential campaign since 1960, showing what worked and what didn’t, backing up their conclusions with a wealth of details from historical accounts, poll data and from their own research in the NYT. It’s a great read for anyone who works in communication and at one time or another has had to weigh the risks and benefits of “going negative.