Both sides "are nearing the line" of harming the candidates the ads are meant to help, says Brigham Young University political scientist Kelly Patterson. Patterson and colleagues are once again studying Utah's 2nd Congressional District campaign as part of a large project looking at close U.S. House races across the country.

He says the Swallow and NRCC ads on Matheson's abortion voting record "are clearly at odds with his overall record" on abortion votes — in other words, they are painting a distorted picture.

And the DCCC and Matheson ads against Swallow show "him as a protector of child molesters" — which also is clearly not the case, Patterson said.

"At some point, people say, 'Wow, this is too aggressive' and not in the Utah style," Patterson said.

Swallow sent out a press release Tuesday complaining about a new Matheson ad that shows a nuclear bomb exploding behind Swallow's head, implying that somehow Swallow wants open-air bomb testing again.

Matheson has been complaining that Swallow is supporting a President Bush-backed initiative to study what it would take to build a new "bunker-busting" small nuclear bomb. Matheson says that would lead to new nuclear underground testing at the Nevada Test Site. Swallow says he's just joining Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and other national Republicans who say it's OK to study the new weapon but oppose any new underground testing.

The slash-and-burn campaigning is turning the 2nd District race into a mud bath, Jones says.

"I believe these negative ads violate the spirit of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform act," said Jones, who is the pollster for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV. "But as one campaign aide said to me this year, 'Dan, we weren't getting anywhere with what we were doing, so we had to try something else.' "

In a mid-September poll for the newspaper and TV station, Jones found Matheson held a 2-to-1 lead over Swallow. "But that has closed," Jones said Wednesday.

Will the negative ads have an impact?

They have in the past in Eastern U.S. House contests, said Jones. "Back East, they work. They work especially in House races where voters really don't know their incumbents' voting records." But as the 1998 Eskelsen race shows, they can fail here, he added.

The NRCC has pumped more than $1.1 million into the 2nd District in TV, direct mail and telephoning, new Federal Election Commission reports show.

"The DCCC is now responding to that" by buying a bunch of TV ads against Swallow, noted Patterson. The DCCC has put more than $640,000 into the race as of Oct. 22, FEC reports show.

"The NRCC and the DCCC see something. They wouldn't have put that money in unless they saw a dynamic — a chance to win, a chance to move some voters," he said.

Non-Utah party PAC ads are historically more negative than the candidates' own advertising, said Patterson. "The candidates have to live here after the election — have to appeal to all constituents if they win office. The candidates want to reflect the values of their community, not push too hard."

And so it is that the state Republican Party is not sending out the final two anti-Matheson fliers, whose content they blame on the NRCC. "I know some (Utah) Republicans are complaining" about the tone of party-produced ads, Jones said.

"We decided to take the high road," says Jenkins.

But, say Patterson and Jones, it may be a road that is already mired in mud.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com