In the closing weeks of their run for Congress, Andy Harris and Frank Kratovil have claimed a wish to get away from negative campaigning.
But it seems they just can't help themselves.
With the election in just four days - a period when campaign professionals advise office-seekers to drop attacks and send voters to the polls with a positive message - the state's most competitive race is ending pretty much as it began: With the candidates tearing into each other.
Harris, a Republican state senator from Baltimore County who has cast Kratovil in recent advertisements as a "Martin O'Malley, tax-and-spend liberal," has opened a new line of attack this week: questioning the Democrat's handling of a pair of cases as the state's attorney in Queen Anne's County.
"We're going to continue to look at Kratovil and what makes him different," Harris campaign manager Chris Meekins said. "People need to know what his real record is."
Kratovil, who paints Harris as an extremist who will say anything to get elected, is airing a television spot pointing to newspaper articles that call his rival's claims "inaccurate," "knowingly deceptive" and "deceitful."
"We're going to push Andy Harris very, very hard on the way that he's been running his campaign," Kratovil spokesman Kevin Lawlor said. "We really think that people deserve an explanation."
The continuing negative tone of the contest reflects the stakes for both sides in the race for the seat now held by Republican Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest. The GOP wants to retain a district that at the start of the race seemed to be an easy Republican hold. Democrats see a rare opportunity to pick up their seventh out of the state's eight House seats.
The rancor between the campaigns has been aided by outsiders. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is planning to spend more than $1 million in the district, has produced television spots contending that Harris is beholden to the banking, insurance and energy interests that have donated to his campaign.
The anti-tax Club for Growth, which helped to bankroll the conservative Harris to victory over the moderate Gilchrest in a bitterly fought Republican primary, is airing ads labeling Kratovil "extremely liberal."
All of this has contributed to the most competitive race the 1st Congressional District has seen in decades, and one of the most expensive ever in Maryland.
