I think McCain is running a far more negative campaign than Obama is.

Palin has suggested that Obama is a socialist and has said he pals around with terrorists. People who have introduced McCain and Palin at rallies have insisted on using Obama's middle name to play on xenophobia that maybe he is middle eastern, and they have suggested he is not Christian by saying millions of non-Christians around the world are praying for Obama to win and prove their Gods are more powerful than the Christian God. Proxies such as Rep Michelle Bachmann have called Obama Anti-American. Nearly all of McCain's TV ads are negative. McCain has hired the same robocalling agency who Bush used to smear McCain in 2000, and is using them to smear Obama with guilt by asociation to Ayers.

In contrast, Obama's campaign does not seem very negative to me. In the California market, we don't get very many ads from either candidate because we are considered a lock, but I have seen about 5 Obama ads on TV. They were all 100% about Obama and didn't even mention McCain. Obama hasn't tried to label McCain with unfair characterizations such as "socialist" or "terrorist" or "Anti-American." I haven't seen any proxies unfairly attacking McCain. I have definitely seen negative comments by Obama, Biden, and proxies about McCain's POLICIES and RECORD. Which I personally feel are fair game. They can be considered a form of negative campaigning, but they are about legitimate policy differences, not bogus labeling, guilt by associatiton, and hate-mongering. I find policy-related negative ads to be fair game as long as they are not based on lies or misrepresentations.

About the only kind of character-related negative comment I have seen by the Obama campaign against McCain has been to call him "erratic." Personally, I think that McCain HAS been erratic, and it is legitimate to point it out --- his campaign moves erratically from one thing to the next with no clear message, and his behavior during the bailout negotiations seemed unpredictable, inconsisitent and not well-thought-out to me.

Other than calling McCain "erratic" and making negative comments about McCain's policies and record, has Obama made any other kind of negative attack against McCain? I am not aware of any. Nothing to compare to calling someone a non-Christian, Middle Eastern, anti-American, socialist terrorist. That is why I think McCain's campaign is far more negative than Obama's.