I got up this morning and noted a press release from Lyla Berg’s campaign in which the candidate for Lt. Governor endorsed Neil Abercrombie for the top spot on the Democratic ticket.

As far as I know, she’s the first LG candidate to formally express a preference. I wonder if this will encourage others to do the same? I tend to doubt it, as the political payoff for stepping out of the pack in this way is questionable. It might make sense if Abercrombie were comfortably ahead, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Anyway, it’s something to watch.

Over the weekend, I was thinking about the examples we’ve seen this year of negative campaigning.

It’s hard to define when simple campaign tactics become the kind of unfair negative campaigning that offend our sensibilities.

It’s certainly fair for candidates to distinguish themselves from their opponents by drawing contrasts or comparisons concerning their records, backgrounds, their campaign platforms and views on key political issues.

Where things veer negative when those comparisons are deceptive, misleading, distort a candidate’s record or views, or contain outright falsehoods.

As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about pornography back in a 1964 decision, “I know it when I see it.” I think we can say that about negative campaigning.

One useful article I ran across describes main types of negative campaigning, starting with the smear.

Smears often consist of ad hominem attacks (see below) in the form of unverifiable rumors and are often distortions, half-truths, or even outright lies; smear campaigns are often propagated by gossip spreading. Even when the facts behind a smear are shown to lack proper foundations, the tactic is often effective because the target’s reputation is tarnished before the truth is known.

Mufi Hannemann has been the target of one smear this year, a letter purporting to describe how his administration at the city tied contracts to campaign contributions.

There are enough titillating details to draw the reader and give it some plausibility, but it’s lodged in an overall package that is obviously fraudulent, and has been denounced as such by both Hannemann and Neil Abercrombie.

The “nice” thing about smears is that no one takes responsibility, but the information still circulates.

Then there’s “Demonizing the opposition”. Some Hannemann supporters have pushed the old image of Abercrombie as a wild, long-haired, bearded druggie, although Hannemann himself has stayed away from publicly using this approach. I’ve already rejected several comments left on this site which used this tactic.

But the real “demonization” tactic has been used by the GOP against both Hannemann and Abercrombie.

The recent message sent out by Hawaii GOP chairman Jonah Kaauwai which used biblical language and images along with direct claims that Republican Duke Aiona’s campaign is favored by Jesus while his opponents are termed “the unrighteous enemy.”

Another interesting although somewhat scholarly article takes a close look at “Karl Rove’s Playbook“, the negative campaign tactics honed by the GOP strategist.

It’s interesting to see how many of these techniques were adopted by Mufi Hannemann’s campaign, beginning with taking the offensive from the beginning and attacking your opponent’s strengths.

Hannemann’s campaign approach from Day 1 was to take Abercrombie’s strength–his 20 years in Congress–and attempt to define it as a negative (not executive experience).

Then there’s Rove’s technique, described in this article as “go negative, then cry foul”, again a tactic used by Hannemann.

So the Hannemann campaign sends out its “Compare and Decide” mailer, which quickly drew a strong negative public reaction. But the campaign then accused Abercrombie of “going negative” when his campaign responded.

Apparently classic Rove being played out locally.

In any case, this long article makes for interesting reading.

And those last minute negative ads? By definition, unfair negative campaigning because the targeted opponent has no time or opportunity to fully respond or explain the issues to the voting public.

Even our city council district drawn negative campaigning this year with a so-called “push poll” planting negative information about several candidates. The rather clumsy telephone poll appeared to be targeting John White, former chief of staff for Congresswoman Mazie Hirono.

Disguised as a survey, the “pollster” did not have to disclose the candidate who was paying to spread this negative message.

Anyway, references to other descriptions or analyses of negative campaign tactics and techniques would be useful.