There's been backlash to the negativity.

"He is not the McCain I endorsed," former Michigan Gov. William Milliken told The Grand Rapids Press, calling the tenor disappointing. "He ought to be talking about the issues."

Perhaps no place underscores McCain's woes better than Indiana, which hasn't voted for a Democrat in decades. Obama has spent an estimated $7 million on advertising there and polls show the race is tight. Republicans just went on the air.

"He's got a great story and a great case to make," Murray Clark, the state party chairman, said of McCain. "Has he made that yet? Not really."

David Frum:

Meanwhile, McCain careens from mistake to mistake.

McCain’s job in this campaign was to stay cool. He had to recognize: “Look, by all rights I should lose this thing. But you never know. Obama is inexperienced, over-educated, and likely to be perceived by many voters as exotic, even alien. Over months of electioneering, he’s bound to stumble. When he does, I’m here—a steady pair of hands—to pick up the pieces.”

But staying cool in the face of downbeat polls requires tremendous discipline. The natural temptation is to Do Things—to Change the Game!

Hence the Palin nomination. Hence the campaign suspension. Hence the misleading negative ads.

The problem is that the more a candidate Does Things, the more likely he is to make a mistake—to frighten off voters at the very moment he needs to be reassuring them. That is what has happened to McCain. Whatever else you say about his campaign, it’s not boring!

The McCain campaign has depicted Obama as a dishonorable slanderer of American troops, a friend of terrorists who is thrusting sex upon kindergarten children. Spicy stuff. (It certainly got a reaction from Shrum.)

But then we see the actual Obama on stage—and he sure does not sound spicy. He sounds grave and measured. He speaks respectfully of John McCain. He finds something nice to say about George W. Bush. You can almost hear swing voters across America thinking, “He’s polite. He’s presentable. He seems less jumpy than the old white guy. He’ll do.”

I’m not sure that McCain’s negative advertising was ever meant to be believed. I think it was meant to provoke.

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/89588/3/3/McCain_self-destructs

Rather, these Republicans said, McCain needs to strike a balance in his tone — appearing presidential while also questioning Obama's readiness to serve and judgment to lead. And, several said McCain should close the campaign on an honorable note.
"He doesn't need an attack strategy, he needs a comeback strategy," said Alex Castellanos, a longtime national GOP media consultant who worked for McCain primary rival Mitt Romney.

David Gergen:

One of the most striking things we've seen in the last few day, we have seen it at the Palin rallies and we saw it at the McCain rally today," said David Gergen, appearing on Anderson Cooper 360 Thursday evening. "And we saw it to a considerable degree during the rescue package legislation. There is a free-floating sort of whipping-around anger that could really lead to some violence. And I think we're not far from that."

....
"I really worry when we get people -- when you get the kind of rhetoric that you're getting at these rallies now," said Gergen. "I think it's really imperative the candidates try to calm people down.

Hell, TB cant you look this up as well as I can?

There are more....