It is the season of negative political ads, and the conventional wisdom is that you must always respond in kind when your opponent goes low with an attack ad in a political campaign. That conventional wisdom is not always true, for acting like a jerk when your opponent behaves like a jerk will only make you look like a jerk.

What you should do when you are attacked in your political campaign.

The first is dissect the political ad of your opponent, word for word and scene by scene and ask yourself some questions:

• Does the ad merit a response?
• Is there anything in the ad that is not true?
• Is there anything in the ad that will hurt you?

Your response to a political ad is determined by how you answer those questions.

If the ad being run against you is poorly produced, or hard to understand, or inconsequential, you don’t need to do anything. Ignore it. Don’t dilute what you already have on the air by responding to it.

If there is something in the ad that is not true, respond by attacking the lie your opponent told. It’s a way of discrediting everything else your opponent said and undermining your opponent’s character and integrity.

If the attack ad your opponent launched is hurting you, use your response to answer the charge, and then hit back by attacking your opponent on a different subject. That forces your opponent to take their negative hit on you off the air in order to respond to your attack on them.

Negative political ads are a fact of life in any democracy where there is freedom of speech. The winner of negative ad slug fests are those who do the best job deflecting or responding to the attacks that come their way.

If you are looking for help in your campaign, please watch this video.