An election so nasty, so soon

Earlier in the week, he was also caught on a microphone calling the Republican attack squads as the most "crooked" and "lying" ever.

"If this keeps up from now until November, there's the potential for the public to be pretty turned off by this and decide 'I don't want either of these guys,' and stay home," says Candace Nelson, director of the Campaign Management Institute in Washington. "But the election is a long way away, so it may just go over people's heads."

Many political junkies have already have had enough and are ready for a break.

They're hoping both candidates decide to turn down the rhetoric at least until the cherry blossoms are done flowering in Washington.

"Kerry and Bush are turning out to be the relatives that won't leave, no matter how many hints you drop," says Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.

And while he, too, can't remember a campaign that launched as early with as much venom, he does note that there have been plenty of others that eventually turned even more malicious, particularly in the 19th century, when newspapers were little more than partisan mouthpieces. In the mid 20th century, President Truman likened his opponent to Hitler as the fascists' tool. But that wasn't until late October.

"Campaigns have certainly been as negative, but this one could be negativefor longer than it ever has been before," says Professor Sabato.

All of the hostility could end up damaging the body politic as a whole, he worries, leaving the country even more polarized than it is now and Congress even less able to find a center of compromise from which to govern.

But political analysts point out that negative ads also can serve a civic function - education - because they provide information, even if it is spun to portray an opponent negatively. They also serve to keep each party's base energized.

That's key this year, because there are so few undecided votes. Usually at this time, about 20 percent of voters haven't made up their minds. But in Mr. Zogby's national polls, that's down about 5 to 7 percent, so reinforcing the base is critical.

"The negativity is not so much as in other years to persuade undecided, it's to throw red meat to your supporters," says Zogby. "So John Kerry doesn't apologize [for his 'lying and crooked' remark] - he doesn't have to, because his supporters hate George Bush."

And the President can come out of the Rose Garden and attack Kerry by name, because his supporters are just as passionately opposed to Kerry.

"This isn't a Sunday afternoon tea party. This is the rough, cutting edge of our democracy," Zogby says. "And it's never going to be friendly or pleasant. That's just not the way politics is."

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