Getting back to Bearded Bruce's initial post, he may well be statistically correct.
In our State of Maine the Republicans went negative first but then the Democrats panicked and went negative BIG TIME against Republicans and Independent candidates.
I'll still vote Democratic on the merits of the the candidates but I don't think the State Democratic Committee's negative strategy will actually win non-Democratic votes on the major State races such as Governor. I hope I'm wrong. Our state is split fairly evenly between Democrats, Republicans and so called Independents.
It's tough running campaigns in hard economic times. And it's even more difficult when there is an amazing amount of undocumented money coming in from out of state.
Follow the money and ignore the personal attacks, unless you're incredibly lonely.