What's The Point Of Being Positive When Press Rewards GOP Negativity?

Media Matters for America

Following the lead of the Romney campaign, and Fox News, the Beltway press spent lots of time this week bemoaning how outlandishly mean and nasty the presidential campaign has supposedly become. But has it? The campaign jabs and counterpunches most often cited in the "nasty" stories hardly seemed historic. And let's keep things in perspective: Coordinating a multi-million dollar marketing campaign to smear a candidate by lying about his war record the way the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to John Kerry? That's ugly, nasty and extraordinary stuff.  Have the Obama and Romney campaigns blatantly crossed all lines of common decency and fair play? Not that I've seen.