Two years ago, when state and national campaign committees were pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into local races and running attack advertisements without the OK of the candidates themselves, we believed it was an all-time low moment for ugly politics.

Sadly, signs point to an even worse display in the coming fall elections.

On the national level, the campaigning on local congressional races seems to have never stopped.

Democrat Dan Maffei basically launched his latest campaign for Republican James Walsh's seat as soon as he lost his previous bid, with much of it focused on attacks on Walsh (before Walsh announced retirement plans).

The National Republican Campaign Committee has been flooding e-mail boxes with attacks on incumbent Democratic Michael Arcuri ever since he was sworn into office at the beginning of 2007.

But the worst example came on the state level in the past month, when all of the political machines' energy was poured into a special election for the state Senate seat in the 48th district.

Though the district is mostly a North Country district, everyone in Central New York saw the barrage of TV ads, with both sides going out of their way to denigrate their opponent. An astonishing $3 million was spent on this race.

The election result, with Democrat Darrel Aubertine winning, means the Republicans now hold a slim 32-30 advantage in the state Senate.

You can bet that both state parties will be pouring all kinds of energy into the local races in the fall.

And with similar small margins in Congress, those campaigns will be heavily influenced by forces in Washington.

Before campaign season truly gets started, though, candidates have a chance to take a stand. We urge everyone running for state Legislature and Congress to pledge up front that they will be vocal in opposing the smear tactics of their own party bosses.