What's so bad about negative advertising?

Since Mike Huckabee wanted to rope everyone into showing his negative ad against Mitt Romney, I'm going to show Mitt Romney's negative ad against Mike Huckabee:



Now, what's wrong with doing that? I think it's better than these empty feelgood ads about hope and character and experience. Facts are stated. It's substantive. Don't we want substance? If the facts are wrong or distorted or incomplete, there will be plenty of talk about it. And we'll be talking about substance.

The main thing that troubles me about this ad — and it was true of Huckabee's anti-Romney ad — is that the music tries too hard to manipulate us into thinking these facts are really horrible. Like in Huckabee's ad, there's a list of terrible things about Romney, and one is: "No executions." And the music is all: He killed a guy with his bare hands and he wants to kill you too.