Muting the Impact of Opponent's Weapons

There's a great piece by Ari Melber in The Huffington Post about the Obama campaign's response to the media on McCain's negative attack ads. He puts the onus back on them, saying,

Notwithstanding the facts, we fully expect an increasingly frustrated and desperate McCain campaign to continue to lie in attacking Senator Obama," reads the memo to the reporters. However, the question remains - will McCain and his allies be challenged by the press on their allies or will they be allowed to propagate them with impunity?

Think about the political jujitsu here. How does this mute the impact of the opponent's violent weapons? The campaign has other approaches. The overall message is that when there's nothing more to offer, campaigns go negative. The Obama camp even has a video quoting John McCain on this. They also have their "Fight the Smears" and "Know the Facts" efforts off their web site.