Sticks, stones might break bones, but will attack ads hurt hopefuls?

After two weeks of attack ads, verbal sparring and negative campaigning from both sides, the Republican frontrunners in the 14th Congressional District race are releasing new radio commercials they describe as "positive."

But don't expect Jim Oberweis and Chris Lauzen to hold hands and break out in a chorus of Kumbaya.

Coming out this week is a campaign mailer and several radio spots from Lauzen's campaign discussing his decision to return nearly $100,000 in campaign contributions from a disbarred lawyer with a criminal record.

Oberweis, a Sugar Grove businessman, brought up the tainted donor issue in his opening statement at a debate last week and has addressed it in campaign mailers, one of which depicts a photo of Lauzen in a virtual portrait gallery that includes Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who also returned donations from John Burgess and his company, International Profit Associates.

"Looks like Chris Lauzen has been keeping bad company," the mailer reads.

Oberweis spokesman Bill Pascoe contends the ads are fair game because Lauzen brought it up himself, announcing to a local news reporter last month that he was giving back the funds. Calling Lauzen out for accepting the money calls into question Lauzen's argument that Oberweis is "big money and big insider establishment clout versus the rest of us in the grassroots," Pascoe said.

Furthermore, Pascoe points out that before Oberweis attacked, Lauzen's campaign sent out two mailers featuring talking cartoon cows discussing the dairy magnate's three failed statewide political campaigns and the millions of dollars he's spent on them.

"The truth is Jim Oberweis is a multimillionaire trying to buy his way into office," one cow states. "There, I said it -- and my word is as good as my milk."

Lauzen, a state senator from Aurora, said he "made an error" with one of the cow mailers, saying he should have designed it as comparison piece.

"It's absolutely fair to contrast," he said. "That is not negative campaigning."

The attack ads are reverberating throughout the blogosphere. Commenting on Tuesday's debate on Illinois Review, a conservative political blog, GOP political consultant Dave Diersen of Wheaton said Oberweis' opening statement attacking Lauzen was so disappointing it caused him to walk out of the event.

Negative campaigning is certainly nothing new in politics and should even be expected in a close race like this one, where a total of seven candidates are vying to replace retired longtime U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert, noted Roosevelt University Professor Paul Green, who has been following the race.

"Everyone says they don't like negative ads, but those are the ones they pay attention to," said Green, director of the university's Institute for Politics. "The money that's spent on negative ads is enormous. … If they didn't work, they wouldn't be spending the money."

Attack ads also present the opportunity for a politician to separate himself from his opponent, he said.

"When you have two candidates like this who are so close on the issues, you have to find ways of distinguishing between them," Green said.

Among the Democratic hopefuls, the race has been much more civil -- a point that isn't lost among those on that side of the aisle who are hoping to turn the seat blue in the Nov. 4 general election.

"The Republicans are fighting amongst themselves so much that they're fracturing their base, and that's helping us out a lot," said Andrew Dupuy, a spokesman for Democrat Bill Foster's campaign. "With a couple weeks to go, they've passed the tipping point of any kind of unified Republican electorate. I don't think it will resonate well" with voters.

Foster's main primary opponent, two-time candidate John Laesch, says GOP infighting "creates a great opportunity for us."

"I've met people who are part of the Lauzen camp who say if Oberweis gets the nomination they'll vote for me and vice-versa," he said. "Some are even Republican precinct committeepeople."

Also running on the Republican side is dark horse Michael Dilger of Evanston, who has yet to campaign publicly, and on the Democratic side are St. Charles lawyer Jotham Stein and Geneva resident Joe Serra.