The XX Factor: What women really think.

Favorite Negative Campaigns

Jumping in on Rachael's and Melinda's discussion about negative campaigning, the example of Pennsylvania Jewish voters being told Obama will bring on a Holocaust and Sen. Elizabeth Dole's swipe at opponent Kay Hagen's Christianity remind me of the 1990 Minnesota Senate race between GOP Sen. Rudy Boschwitz and college professor Paul Wellstone. Both candidates happened to be Jewish, but the Saturday before the election Sen. Boschwitz sent out a direct-mail letter to "Friends in the Minnesota Jewish Community," accusing Wellstone of having "no connection whatsoever with the Jewish community." While Boschwitz was proudly "known as 'the Rabbi of the Senate,' " the letter said, Wellstone was married to a shiksa (Wellstone's wife Sheila was a Southern Baptist), and their "children were brought up as non-Jews."

Wellstone held a press conference decrying Boschwitz's apparent problem with Christians and "the way my wife and I have decided to raise our children." Three days later, Boschwitz was the only Republican incumbent senator defeated in that election.