In a Pivotal Year, GOP Plans to Get Personal

The Republicans are masters of this kind of negative campaigning - look how well the Swift Boat Vets campaign worked. And that was spearheaded by a guy who got his start in the Nixon Administration's dirty tricks department.

Sadly, this stuff works very well.
All it takes is a complete lack of ethical qualms and total faith in the idea that the means justify the ends. In reality, the means determine the ends, but try telling that to a true believer of any ideological stripe...

Originally posted by xmotex
look how well the Swift Boat Vets campaign worked.

Tell me about it, even Wal-mart is using them to fight the negative views used by some groups against their company.

I call it dirty politics. . . for some reason the GOP has become very dirty in their tactics.

Originally posted by marg6043

I call it dirty politics. . . for some reason the GOP has become very dirty in their tactics.

Their tactics have become so dirty because this is the only way they can win, they know they're doomed, Bush has screwed the entire Republican Party and most of them have followed suit.... They did it to themselves.

is there some sort of defamation of character law these adverts could fall under?

That's a good question.. I'll definately have to research that and get back to you. It could probably go both ways, Both parties are guilty of it.. And I'm sure if its true, then it's not defimation of character, and.. It's Politics, that's what its about, Make your opponent look like a donkey..

It seems that this is going further and further...

Yahoo News

WASHINGTON - Shadowy corporate figures who cut backroom deals. Stealthy terrorists who drive cabs by day. Immigrants who steal across the border by night.
Politicians are finding no shortage of boogeymen to associate with their opponents this campaign season.

I love it, When the media is picking up on it and reporting it, that's getting pretty bad, Even using the term "boogeymen".

Sure, candidates are tying their opponents to Big Oil and Islamic fascists. And to special interests and partisan bloggers. But they're also doing their best to link their rivals with the likes of George W. Bush and Nancy Pelosi and Tom Delay and Hilary Rodham Clinton

Well why wouldnt they? those are the big names floating around, big names draw attention, attention draws eyes, that draws votes..

In many areas of the country, Democrats are the ones running ads that feature Bush, whose job approval ratings are stuck in the 30s.

Not where I live. I'm a resident of the great swing state of Ohio, and the local Congress peoples have been running ad's that are pretty much just bashing Democrats..

It's sad that it has to come to this, fueding over power by verbally bashing your opponent, not for the good you can do, but for the bad your opponent has done.

so what else is new? if they actually ran on issues that affected peoples lives they would lose big time so attackattackattack. Someone has already said that if that demos had any brains they would run this info over and over again. Better yet, take such a high road that every attack the republicans make only serves to make them look more and more petty. Which of course they actually are anyway.

I'm not saying that it's new.. I'm just saying that it seems worse this year.. With big Congressional seats are at stake.. NORMALLY.. The ads are about what the Politician has done.. this year it seems like what the opponent is doing badly.... It's all a joke.. You see one ad that says one thing, the VERY next ad is saying the total opposite...

Just to retouch on all of this.. the two main political commercials I'm seeing locally are Mike DeWine and Sherrod Brown.. And they're aweful Sherrod Brown (D) attacks Mike DeWine's (R) tax cuts for oil companies etc etc.. and Mike DeWine accuses Sherrod Brown of letting 11 million illegal aliens cross the border from Mexico...

I think it's just pathetic on how bad this has gotten