Negative political ads, and the fact that California gubernatorial candidates Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman failed to agree to Matt Lauer’s “gotcha” truce, was a hot topic with the cable-news crowd yesterday. Hannity host Sean Hannity wondered why the crowd would boo Whitman for just wanting to “point out somebody’s record,” and Donny Deutsch told the Morning Joe gang that there’s nothing wrong with going negative but Whitman should have spun the attack spots as “issue ads.” Over on Hardball, Chris Matthews seemed to enjoy making a violent comparison between end-of-the-campaign ads that “put you away” and firing a handgun at the head of a dying enemy, and Rachel Maddow bucked the trend by denouncing negative ads, in particular Sharron Angle’s classy effort to link Harry Reid with scary-looking people who aren’t white. Watch our compilation to see what you missed.
