Low campaign road to nowhere?

Political analysts say personal attack won't work in time of economic distress

Election 2008

Understanding those issues and deciphering the candidates' respective stances is another matter. Both campaigns, in fact, have kept Brooks Jackson and his staff busy. Jackson is the executive director of the nonpartisan FactCheck.org, which aims to separate fact from fiction in the sea of political chatter, debates and candidate claims. Jackson says sorting through the rumors, lies and mischaracterizations this campaign season has been like "drinking water from a fire hose."

After this week's debate, Jackson said he didn't get to bed until 5 a.m., as he and his staff were busy posting factual flubs. Many were statistical distortions and others historical misrepresentations. There's an audience for such record-setting, as the site claimed more than 6.4 million unique visitors last month.

"I think it speaks to people's curiosity and bewilderment when they're confronted with dubious sounding facts," said Jackson. "One says this, the other says that, they're both correcting each other. Naturally, you wonder, which is right?"

Between the truth and the falsehood, both candidates run the risk of talking around voters. Half of Tuesday's 90-minute debate was focused on the economy, yet in network focus groups, undecided voters still expressed uncertainty about how the candidates would address the crisis.

"In politics, we're so used to putting complex issues in a single sentence, [such as] 'We will withdraw from Iraq,' " said Moreno, the Florida professor. "The economic issue isn't one that allows you to have a simple sound-bite that really tells voters what you think. I follow this closely, and I can't really tell you how Obama or McCain will deal with this differently."

And if the voters can't differentiate the candidates' economic messages, their negative campaigning might have minimal sway next month.

"All of that other stuff is just background noise," Moreno said. "When Americans go into the booth Nov. 4, the question they'll ask themselves is, 'Who is going to fix the economy?' "