Identifying strong, honest candidates.  As noted above, the rougher, ruder, character-oriented tone of a negative campaigning environment acts as a useful test of a politician’s reputation and integrity. Further, opposition wish to restate their early counter-argument on the evolving and dynamic nature of election campaigns. No campaign is uniformly negative of positive.  A candidate who is able to stand firm in the face of attacks against his character and his policies is much more likely to be able to act as a strong advocate in a legislative forum, or when accounting for the actions of the executive. Determination and strong argumentation skills in one area imply a similar degree of dedication in other areas. By contrast, how much confidence should we have in a politician who would be prepared to appeal to the enforcement mechanism created by the proposition to forcibly exclude a particular statement or allegation from a political debate, rather than respond to it? The problems that confront national governments cannot be dismissed simply by invoking a law designed to eliminate fuzzily defined forms of unfair conduct.  Attack adverts are used much more frequently in US-style primary selection contests, which poll members of a particular political party in order determine the candidate who will represent it in national or lower-level elections [i] . The use of negative campaigning in the context of party or semi-open primaries may help to distinguish between politicians running on very similar ideological platforms.  If an aspiring president’s ideological allies can be dissuaded from voting for him, based on his past actions or associations, it will be extremely easy to convince undecided voters to do the same.  By identifying politicians who are difficult to assail on an ad hominem basis, and by identifying politicians who can remain composed and professional when subjected to such attacks, political parties are able to field significantly stronger candidates in open elections. Voters then carry out similar assessments of character and integrity in the polling booth.  [i] “Clinton Questions Role of Obama in a Crisis”. The New York Times, 01 March 2008.