Is negative campaigning good for the country?

After listening to John G. Geer speak yesterday about how negative campaigning is good for the country, I couldn't help but disagree. It's not that I disagreed with his basic argument that negative campaigning brings issues to the forefront and causes candidates to react to each other's claims, thus making it good. I think as a concept, this is fine. If this happened in our politics today, there would be nothing wrong with negative campaigning. What I disagree with is that candidates hardly ever do this. Most of the negative campaigning I have seen in this election are either exaggerated claims based on a tiny piece of fact or outrageous claims that are funny to even think about being true (example: Obama and sex education for kindergartners).

I don't think candidates saying blatant lies or stretching the truth are good for anyone, because all this does is leave voters confused about which side to believe and cause the media to harp on the negative campaigning and lies, thus keeping issues out of the media by focusing on campaign tactics.

That being said, if candidates were to do negative campaigning without using lies and confusing people, like NR did in "Believers in Barack: Apparently, Obama-love is blind," I don't think I'd have quite so much trouble with it.

In this article, Thomas Sowell lays out the facts for why he thinks people should not vote for Obama. He says that Obama is being too vague with his "change" campaign, people don't know enough about him or what he has done on issues of crime, education, financial institutions, or Iran. He goes on to talk about things we do know about Obama, such as he opposed stricter regulations on Fannie Mae, was the second-largest recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae, and then sought the advise of disgraced former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines. This article presented facts, not exaggerated or blatant lies. This kind of coverage is what should be shown for both sides, because it gives voters what they need to know, not confuses them.