Leadership Quote by Anne Northup

Negative ads are the political equivalent of junk food: widely condemned, quietly consumed, and reliably effective. Anne Northup’s line has the blunt, insider candor of someone describing the machinery rather than the ideals. She’s not defending negativity as noble; she’s pointing to the incentives that keep it in circulation.

The intent is disarmingly practical. By framing attack ads as something campaigns “run” for a “reason,” Northup shifts the conversation from morality to mechanics. It’s a move politicians often make when they want to sound realistic, even resigned: don’t blame the players, blame the game. The subtext is a shrug with teeth: if you want cleaner politics, you’ll have to change what voters reward, what donors fund, and what media amplifies.

Why does the line work? Its power comes from a taboo admission. American political culture loves to scold negative campaigning while treating politics as entertainment and conflict. Northup punctures that self-image. “They work” is a cold metric, implying polling, persuasion rates, turnout suppression, and the asymmetry researchers often find: a memorable hit can travel farther than a policy plan, especially when attention is scarce and cynicism is abundant.

Context matters, too. Northup, a long-serving Republican from Kentucky, speaks from inside an era when campaigns professionalized into message discipline, opposition research, and ad-driven warfare. Her quote reads like a warning disguised as realism: negativity isn’t an aberration, it’s a rational response to what the electorate and the system currently select for. If we hate it, the uncomfortable implication is that we’re part of why it persists.