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Both Sides Turn Presidential Campaign Negative

MIAMI (CBS4) – The 2012 presidential campaign is quickly devolving into a match between each side on how outlandish or completely false they can make ads against their opponents.

From Mitt Romney's campaign literally cherry-picking a single-quote out of context and trying to build a campaign message around it to a Super PAC supporting Barack Obama implying that Romney's Bain Capital led to a woman's death; this campaign has seen it all and it's not over yet.

The Romney campaign claimed it was taking the high road and ironically said that no ad should be run that independent fact checkers determine to be false. Romney's own campaign released an ad judged false by independent fact checkers regarding the Obama administration and welfare.

The Super PAC ad in support of Obama has been deemed false and the White House is backtracking away from the ad quickly, even though the Super PAC acts without coordination or communication from the Obama campaign.

Politifact has been weighing in on each campaigns messages and has found that Romney makes claims that are mostly false, false, or pants on fire roughly 41 percent of the time. Politifact found Obama makes claims that are mostly, false, false, or pants on fire 29 percent of the time.

On the truth side of claims, Romney rated as making claims that are half-true, mostly true, or true 58 percent of the time, while Obama made claims along the same categories 71 percent of the time, according to Politifact.

With still almost 100 days left until the November general election, the negative campaign ads are just beginning and both candidates will be called out for inaccuracies. In the end, the truthfulness of either candidate could become a major factor in how independent voters break on election day.

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