Iowa fed up with attack ads

Washington Post:
The Republican Party’s leader in Iowa’s biggest county says he’s had enough with the negative advertisements blanketing the airwaves across the state.

Kevin McLaughlin, chairman of the Polk County Republican Party, called for a moratorium on negative advertisements in an interview Monday, and said he planned to issue a formal call at a news conference later this week.

“It’s like drinking salt water,” McLaughlin said. “When you drink salt water, you get a short-term benefit, but long-term it’s worse for you. That’s what we’re doing here, and it’s got to stop.”

McLaughlin said the ads were deepening what had been a natural splintering of the party’s base during the hotly contested presidential primary campaign. He added that he fears the rift could cause irreparable harm to the eventual Republican nominee in next year’s general election campaign against President Obama.

“They create deep rifts at the base of the party, which make it harder to pull the party together by the general election,” McLaughlin said. “That’s going to be a huge problem for us, and I don’t think people are paying enough attention to that.” 
... 
A Romney super pac has spent big on negative ads about Gingrich as has Ron Paul and to a lesser extent Rick Perry.  Iowas has a history of reacting negatively to this type of ad.  However, polls suggest the ads have been effective at pulling Gingrich down from the lead he once had in the state.

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