Mr. Golisano has released two commercials attacking the governor in the last week, as polls suggest he will draw more votes from the governor than from Mr. McCall.

On the other side, the New York affiliate of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League is paying $50,000 for commercials attacking Mr. Lazio's position on abortion.

Sam Wyly, the wealthy Texas entrepreneur who financed commercials attacking Senator John McCain in the 2000 Republican primary, gave $10,000, as did his brother Charles, records show.

Labor responded with commercials attacking the Liberals' campaign as 'smears', which was disputed by John Howard.

Swift Vets captured headlines for weeks in last year's presidential race, when it spent millions of dollars on incendiary commercials attacking Senator Kerry's war record.

While commercials and mailings attacking Democrats as weak on issues like child protection appear to occur only sporadically, Democrats contend that it is a tactic that Republicans fall back on regularly.

Believing they had no other way to keep the Liberals from winning a majority, Gregg and Tory decided to launch a series of commercials attacking Chrétien.

Mr. McCain's threat also forced Mr. Bush to abandon his long-promised posture of never stooping to commercials attacking his rival.

They noted, for instance, that there have been debates among officials in both places about how and when the party should begin broadcasting commercials attacking Mr. Gore - and that those debates are ongoing.

For Mr. Gore, the task has fallen mainly to Handgun Control, which is running commercials attacking Mr. Bush in several Midwestern cities.