A dirrrrty campaign season?

The Washington Post a few days ago reported about the race in Wisconsin between Republican Rep. Ron Kind and Paul Nelson, the Democratic challenger.

The race features a commercial in which Nelson has "XXX" in a twisted-logic sort of way to brand Kind.

The story talks about this race and how this campaign season seems to be getting more and more personal. Nelson is quoted in the story:

"Negative campaigning is vicious personal attacks," he said in an interview. "This (commercial) isn't personal at all."

Later in the story:

The National Republican Campaign Committee is spending more than 90 percent of its advertising budget on negative ads, according to GOP operatives, and the rest of the party seems to be following suit.

I haven't been paying too much attention to the commercials, to be honest, except for the Doyle-Green gubernatorial race, which is certainly a pretty negative race.

Does anyone have any feelings on whether this campaign season has been any dirtier or more negative than past ones?