Who wins when campaigns go negative?

Just when you thought political campaigns couldn’t get any nastier, in comes the woman who fought relentlessly for the right of Texans to end any pregnancy up until the moment of birth.

Democrat Wendy Davis became a darling of the left last year when she filibustered a bill creating safety regulations and a 20-week gestational limit on Texas abortions—a policy supported by a majority of Americans. Now she is running for governor in Texas against Republican Greg Abbott, the state’s attorney general. Abbott, whom WORLD profiled in May, is confined to a wheelchair.

You probably know what’s coming. In a sign of desperation, Davis unveiled on Friday an ad showing an empty wheelchair that goes on to accuse Abbott of being a hypocrite and an enemy to disabled Texans:

From The Washington Post to Mother Jones, even the most liberal commentators found the ad indefensible. The Davis campaign continues to run it, saying the ad is about Abbott’s record as an insider, not his disability. Davis herself has publicly defended it, telling MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that because of the ad, “voters now see Greg Abbott for who he is.”

Last night, Abbott told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the ad didn’t bother him: “If [Davis] wants to attack a guy in a wheelchair, that’s her prerogative. As for me, I’m running a different type of campaign ... I will focus on the future of Texas while my opponent continues to attack me.”

Meanwhile, the Abbott campaign fired back this morning, releasing an ad focusing on media backlash over Davis’ ad and calling her “unfit to be governor”:

Negative ads are not new, and candidates from both parties use them with reckless abandon because studies show they work. Some claim they’re important for democracy.

But not every politician goes negative. I recently interviewed U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster, a Florida Republican who has steadfastly refused to go negative despite the most convincing reasons to do so. In 2010, his Democratic opponent, Rep. Alan Grayson, drew national attention when he ran an ad that compared Webster to the Taliban, distorting a speech Webster had given to fathers at a Christian conference. Fact-checkers rated the ad false, yet Webster still refused to criticize his opponent.

“I believe that I should be able to get elected [based] on who I am, not get elected because I’m the default candidate for my opponent,” Webster told me. “I want to have a clear conscience when I’m done.”

Webster, who was outspent 4-to-1, beat Grayson by 18 percentage points, but hasn’t stopped his other political opponents from recycling the false claim, including Webster’s current Democratic challenger, Michael McKenna, who tweeted prior to his party’s primary on Aug. 25: “Florida Voters: Pick McKenna to Beat Taliban Dan Webster on Tuesday.”

Webster, a distant relative of the famed American orator of the same name, declines even to say why voters should not vote for his opponent. His strategy has not hurt his winning percentage: Webster won nine terms in the Florida House, three terms in the Florida Senate, and he’s now running for a third term in the U.S. House.

“I think you’re wronging someone when you come out with negative ads,” Webster said. “Even if you win the race, what have you won?”