Negative Ad?

Fred has released a web ad showing statements by Romney and Giuliani regarding their (and his) statements regarding their conservative / liberal leanings, particularly on abortion. For those of us who have paid attention to this campaign, there is nothing new here.

The Boston Globe has an article regarding this ad. The interesting part of the article is the response of a Romney spokesman:

Romney's spokesman, Kevin Madden, responded this way: “Interesting how the candidate who was the last one to enter the race is the first one to run a negative ad. But, that’s what happens to candidates who are without any new ideas of their own.”

This coming from the Romney camp? Oh well.

Here is my question: what constitutes a "negative ad"? If I say in an ad that "HillaryCare is a step to socialized medicine", is that negative? How about "Hillary is a socialist"? Both are true statements. Both have negative connotations. In an ad, I would not consider either to be "negative ads". If I said in the ad "Hillary is a deceiver and a liar", that would be a negative ad.

Yelling about negative ads is not a good move--and I don't think the Fred ads are particularly negative--they just point out positions of his competitors.