The Kentucky race for a U.S. Senate seat has been anything but cordial.

With Democratic nominee Bruce Lunsford trying to unseat Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who has been in office for 24 years, the race is gaining national attention.

While running negative campaign advertisements seems to be something politicians are accustomed to, these opponents have taken things too far. It is one thing to attack each other on political stances, but is all of the personal smearing really necessary?

For example, we’ve all probably seen the numerous TV ads from both opponents about Valor Healthcare, which runs a chain of VA contract heath clinics accused of providing deficient care, according to an article in Monday’s Kernel.

Lunsford is currently a director of Valor, and the former chief executive officer and chairman. McConnell has had a field day with ads featuring veterans that have claimed to have received improper care from Valor.

Lunsford then responded with his own TV ad, featuring veteran Adolfo Piña, who was part of McConnell’s attack ad. Piña said in the Lunsford ad that McConnell “took my words out of context.” There is no need for either of the candidates to take advantage of these veterans.

Lunsford has jumped on the bandwagon that most other Democratic candidates running for any kind of office have jumped on — that George W. Bush and Republicans are to blame for many of the country’s problems. One ad said, “George W. Bush and Mitch McConnell have led America in the wrong direction,” showing a picture of them side by side as if, single-handedly, these two men have led to the demise of our country.

There is also the ever-so-popular “Ditch Mitch” campaign. You can find the yard signs, bumper stickers and T-shirts all over the state.

Even though most of us claim to loathe these negative attack ads, they must be working. The campaigns, most likely, wouldn’t keep spending the money to have them made and aired on TV if they weren’t having some kind of effect on voters.

Not that all campaign ads have to be positive, but why can’t they focus on raising up their own candidate instead of stomping on the other? Save that for the debates.