The newly founded Wesleyan Media Project in Middletown, Connecticut, has taken a good, hard look at this election cycle’s ads, and come up with some very interesting conclusions (conclusions that would seem to vindicate John Kasich’s attacks on Ted Strickland for mudslinging, for one). Highlights from the Project’s report below:

As we reported last week, “claims that 2010 is the most negative election to date may be premature. In an analysis of close to 900,000 airings from January 1 to October 5, 2010, the Wesleyan Media Project finds that the distribution of positive, negative and contrast ads is comparable to 2008 in proportion, if not in volume.” […]
However, there is one crucial difference: Democrats are using personal attacks at much higher rates than Republicans and a much higher rate than Democrats in 2008.[…]
In 2010, pro-Democratic ad sponsors focused on the personal characteristics of Republican candidates in 21% of their attack ads. This is up from the 12% of Democratic attack ads in 2008 that were focused on personal characteristics. Republicans have mentioned candidate characteristics in 11 percent of their attack ads this year.