Is the campaign "too nasty, too soon?"

So as I was struggling to find inspiration for what I was going to write about, I stumbled upon CNN.com and saw the side bar for their political ticker and the title read: "Ticker: Is '08 race too nasty, too soon?" I've never followed elections very closely and I'm not a savant of the political realm so this is definitely not my area of expertise to say the least. However, the "low blows" that have been dealt by different parties come at a time where there is over a year until the actual elections. I thought this was really interesting in relation to the purpose of our blog. If meaningful political debates were more common would the "low blows" during the political campaign lessen? Or would the frequent meetings make the conversation so informal that it would be the perfect setting to make personal references to harm the other opponents campaign?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/