Gearing up for 2012

I love election season. The creative ways candidates approach their respective campaigns always manage to excite and entertain me at the same time. I'm often never sure what candidates focus on more in their campaigns, their policies or negative campaigning against their opponents. One would think that a candidate or party would present its strongest argument by promoting its own platform instead of dragging the opposing party through the mud. Here's a commercial from the 2004 election distributed by the Club for Growth PAC, an obviously conservative group, against Democratic candidate Howard Dean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4-vEwD_7Hk
The commercial encounters an older couple and asks them what they think about Howard Dean's policy regarding taxes. After responding with one or two arguments relevant to the question posed, the couple switches off describing all the cynical, stereotypical characteristics of liberals. Apparently, by throwing out these traits, the viewer is supposed to become even more turned off to the liberal candidate, in this case, Howard Dean.
In general, I'm not a huge fan of negative campaigning, but I can respect that mode of campaigning as long as the accusations and exposure remain policy oriented. However, when the attacks become personal, based on silly stereotypes, I immediately view the accusing candidate or party as weak, and dismiss them as unqualified. Over the past two plus years we've seen partisanship in Congress taken to an extreme. I just hope that the 2012 presidential candidates are able to pull themselves together and campaign on their own strengths, rather than their opponents' weaknesses.