Lesser of the two evils

Question : Whats the media buzz about these days ?
Apart from the wars and the subprime mortgage business, presidential candidates and their campaigns seem to be getting a lot of attention.

Actually this post is not about the presidential campaigns or candidates..but about all democratic elections in general.. whether its in the united states or somewhere else in the world.. presidential, state governor or even student council elections.

Excluding a very very very few exceptions(I cannot think of an example now, but like all things, I assume this must have some exceptions too), all of the other election campaingns seem to follow one pattern. Instead of focussing on what they can do "better", they seem to concentrate more on whats "worse" about their opponents. Is it because they lack the good ideas/plans they can talk about ?