Chicago Sun-Times: McCain's negative ads could make him look "angry" and "petulant"

You think? The thing is, McCain's negative ads have and haven't been successful. Typically, you want to make a small ad buy and then get the media and your opponent to talk about your ads, showing them endlessly for free on TV, etc. I.e., earned media, as we call it - or free publicity. The problem is when the free publicity is all negative. In this case, all the chatter is about how McCain has gotten angry, petulant, off-message, confused, tabloid. It's about how McCain has abandoned his "straight talk" image. How McCain has gone back on his promise to run a clean campaign. During the Swift Boating of John Kerry, the media didn't do their job. They rebroadcast the Swift Boat commercials, and surrogates, and let them spew, without calling them on their bs. This time, the media is running with McCain's story, but they're running it as an example of how bad McCain has gotten. That is not the goal of free media.