Political Punch

This election cycle's barrage of negative campaigning has gotten a lot of attention lately. This week, Political Punch takes a slightly deeper plunge into the slime.

"All those negative ads don't matter. When you come together, you cannot be stopped," President Obama told supporters at a campaign event in Jacksonville, Florida.

And while it is true that Obama faces a battery of negative ads from independent groups funded by unknown individuals, and it's also true that Mitt Romney is a relentless negative campaigner, the president is not so innocent on this charge, either.

A recent study of a 2-week period ending in July found that about 89 percent of Obama's ads carried an anti-Romney message and 94 percent of Romney's ads an anti-Obama message; 2012 is on pace to become the most negative campaign cycle ever.

But just how far back does Obama's negative campaigning go? And how down and dirty were the ads of 2008 compared with today's? Check out this week's Political Punch to find out.