With just a day left before the general election, the candidates vying for the seat as governor agree that the race might have gotten a bit ugly.

Democratic candidate Jim Doyle’s website says Doyle has tried to clean up the remainder of the election.

Two weeks ago, Doyle stopped running an ad criticizing McCallum’s use of state airplanes and replaced it with an ad that focused on health care, job and education issues.

“There have been a lot of complaints about the tone of this campaign — from voters, editorial writers, even Gov. McCallum, who told a reporter recently that he couldn’t stand to watch his own negative commercials,” Doyle said. “For too many people in the state Capitol, their priority has been to accumulate power, hold on to it, and use it for their own purposes. In the last few days, we have seen the kind of government that gets us.”

Incumbent governor Scott McCallum’s campaign has also taken this approach to dealing with the issues. Although his campaign ran ads about Doyle, the ads have been factual and contrasted the candidates, according to Debbie Monterrey-Millett, communications for the McCallum campaign.

Monterrey-Millett also noted the ads that ran through October have mostly been about McCallum’s stances on the issues.

Libertarian candidate Ed Thompson said the desire on all sides to win is strong, causing the race’s negativity.

“I think they both could [have] done a better job. We as human beings should do better than that,” Thompson said. “The desire to win is so strong, they lower themselves.”

Thompson said Doyle and McCallum are not bad people; however, the desire to win affected them.

“I think the other parties can learn from the third-party candidates,” Thompson said.

Although Thompson has not run television ads, he has run two radio ads criticizing the way they race.

“You’ve heard those negative ads that Mr. McCallum and Mr. Doyle are running. You know the ads,” Thompson said in the radio ads.

“They accuse each other of lying, mismanagement and corruption. Jim says this and Scott says that. Whatever they’re saying about each other doesn’t much matter to me. What matters to me is how we should be tackling our problems. So, have you put your mud-flaps on your TV set yet? McDoyle and the Republicrats are really letting it fly.”

Susan Young, scheduler for Green party candidate Jim Young’s campaign, agreed focusing on the issues should be the concern of the race — anything else is a waste of citizen’s time.

Susan Young said Jim Young has run a clean race.

“I think he is really proud of how he has handled himself. He is true to his values,” Susan Young said.

Susan Young said the “ugliness” of the campaign could be shown when turning on the television. Many of the ads aired did not focus on the issues, but rather on the other candidate. Some of the debates also turned into arguments rather than discussion of the issues.

“Someone wants to be a winner of the argument, and that is just inappropriate with the citizens’ time,” Susan Young said.