To date, according to the report, 73 percent of McCain's ads and 61 percent of Obama's have been negative. But those figures changed dramatically in the past week. The study found that nearly 100 percent of McCain's ads since Sept. 28 and 34 percent of Obama's have been negative.
At this week's debate in Nashville, Tenn., though, the candidates opted to attack each other's policies rather than personalities. Still the McCain campaign has indicated it isn't ready to change course. Palin met with reporters Tuesday night and continued to question Obama's relationship with Ayers, contending it is an economic issue.
"It makes you wonder about the forthrightness, the truthfulness of the plans he's telling Americans with regards to the economic recovery," she said.
Some observers are decrying the negative turn taken in the race. The New York Times' editorial writers accused McCain and Palin of "running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember," replete with "race-baiting and xenophobia."
But others say the onslaught has not been especially noxious. They point to the Swift Boat attacks against Kerry in 2004, the Willie Horton ads that hurt Michael S. Dukakis and Lyndon B. Johnson's iconic 1964 ad that cast Barry Goldwater as an unsteady overseer of the nation's nuclear arsenal.
Political campaigns will resort to accusatory messages in close races in particular, said Shawn Parry-Giles, a University of Maryland professor and director of the Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership.
"In some ways, it's kind of late to be turning this negative," she said, noting that the Swift Boat ads that helped derail Kerry's bid appeared early in the summer of 2004. "Both candidates, I think, wanted to keep their message positive and focused on candidates, but when it comes down to it, the one who's behind often has no other choice."
It might be a losing tactic for McCain, suggests Virginia's Sabato. The nation's recent economic upheaval was a game-changer, he said, rendering negative campaigning moot.
Such campaigning "almost never works in big change election" such as this year's, Sabato said. "Why? By definition, the fundamentals are driving the election, in this case the deep unpopularity of the president, a foreign war and most of all, the economy. What the candidates say about each other becomes almost insignificant. I don't care what's in the headlines or what the press is covering. That's not how big-change elections are decided. They're decided on the issues."
