This is about negative advertising. On Friday, Oct. 10, Norm Coleman announced he would stop all negative advertising. I heard it on a major Minnesota AM radio station. The next ad was that very familiar advertisement blasting Al Franken. Of course Sen. Coleman did not approve that negative advertisement. That was paid for by the Republican Party where, apparently, Coleman has no influence to deter negative ads.

This morning, Thursday, Oct. 16, I heard two advertisements; one blasting Al Franken, again not approved by Norm Coleman, the other was the positive Sen. Coleman advertisement stating that he has stopped negative advertising. I sent an e-mail to the Coleman campaign last Friday noting that when his statement of no negative advertising appears close to the negative party advertising it makes him look like a schmuck. It did last week. It still does this week.

In case you have not learned this, the purpose of negative advertising is to make sure the candidates’ supporters are angry enough with the opponent that they will show up at the voting booth. This has been a staple of American politics virtually forever. I am bewildered by political commentators who say Sen. McCain must go negative to win. I think McCain’s only real chance is to go 100 percent positive at all levels. He needs to positively persuade all those independent voters he has a viable plan. Unlike Norm Coleman, he should show huge leadership by making this happen at all levels of the presidential campaign without ever announcing, “Look at me, I’m going positive.”

If Sen. John McCain could pull off that transformation, I believe he would win and would deserve to win.

Joel Xavier

Ellendale