GOP race turns nasty with Iowa ads

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DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Iowa voters are being deluged with campaign ads, some of them nasty, as the Republican presidential campaign gears up for the Jan. 3 caucuses, analysts say.

Candidates and their allies are starting to air TV ads as the state enters the final weeks before precinct caucuses, and while some ads are what the rest of the country has seen in nationally televised debates, some are more blunt and critical, McClatchy Newspapers reported Wednesday.

Some ads blasting front-runner Newt Gingrich are couched in harsh language not employed when candidates are onstage with Gingrich before a national audience.

Hard-hitting ads by Ron Paul call Gingrich a hypocrite, language echoed by a pro-Mitt Romney group.

Romney has taken a more subtle line, with ads noting he's been faithful to the same wife and church all his life -- portraying himself as consistent while also implicitly contrasting himself with Gingrich, who's on his third marriage.

Whether such ads will have an effect is open to debate, experts said.

"In a season of goodness and joy, people don't tend to seek out attack ads to watch," David Perlmutter, director of the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Iowa, said.

"On Gingrich, for example, the question is whether these groups have enough time to build up the negatives on him," he said.