Negative campaigning, also referred to as mudslinging, is custom in American politics. Rather than highlighting their own positive attributes, policy preferences and agenda, candidates seek to obtain votes by vilifying their opponents – not always accurately, I might add.

The fact that the people we entrust to run our country partake so heavily in this traditional red, white and blue drama is both mortifying and disconcerting.

GOP hopeful Mitt Romney recently justified ditching his “above the fray” game plan before Florida’s primary by attributing Newt Gingrich’s South Carolina win to the negative ads targeted at Romney’s campaign.

According to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, mudslinging was at a record high before Tuesday’s GOP contest in Florida – 68 percent of ads in Florida were anti-Gingrich, while 23 percent negatively targeted Romney.

In the week leading up to the primary, 92 percent of aired ads were negative – an unprecedented rate for political campaigns, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group’s findings.

The attacks made in these advertisements were so vicious and misleading that at one point Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) stepped in to clarify the misinformation – the two leading GOP candidates accused the other of “anti-immigrant” positions in an attempt to alienate the large voting Hispanic population in the state. To the Miami Herald, Rubio said the charges from both sides were false and inflammatory.

Despite Romney enjoying support from less than 0.1 percent of advertisements, he emerged the Florida champion; pro-Gingrich ads, on the other hand, accounted for 9 percent. Apparently, constituents don’t find positive campaigning focused on political goals and platforms nearly as appealing as advertisements comprised of what is essentially tabloid gossip.

Having watched both political camps engage in such childish actions, congratulating Romney for his victory in Florida and Gingrich in South Carolina seems relatively undeserved.

Although wishing for more positive rhetoric might make me an idealist, such verbal assaults are not constructive to quality deliberation. At the very least, these belligerent tactics should be relegated to political debates, where candidates are present to immediately correct any inaccuracies.

We need leaders running our country, not candidates whose primary aim is slighting their opponents.

Email Lee at

jlee@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet at us @DBOpinion.