Negative Campaigning: It Could Be Worse

Political Wire has a list of the top 5 dirtiest Presidential campaigns.

The 1876 race came out on top and shows that the negative ads we see today could be worse.

1. 1876: Rutherford Hayes vs. Samuel Tilden -- This is the granddaddy of them all: a truly stolen election in which Republicans turned defeat into victory for Rutherford Hayes by counting Democratic votes as their own in three Southern states. Both parties used violence to intimidate former black slaves for their votes. And not to mention that Republicans extorted 2% of the salaries of Federal employees to aid in their campaign efforts, or that Democrats accused Hayes of shooting his mother and robbing the dead, or that Republicans claimed that Samuel Tilden suffered from venereal disease.