To be honest, I think the reason that we see far more attack ads than issue ads is that there are really only 2 candidates for any office. So rather than having to be a good candidate, you just have to be slightly better than the other guy. So if you can make the other guy look like Hitler/Stalin then the fact that you are a slimeball doesn't matter. You still win because no one wants to vote for a guy that's like a Hitler. If there were three parties or more, you'd see more debates and issue ads because rather than being simply not completely evil, you would have to have an actual plan. You couldn't just say that Joe the Republican wants to cut SS, because there's you & Bob the Green Party guy who wants to make SS a bigger program, and possibly George the Libertarian who wants to get rid of the program altogether. Now you have to have some sort of plan, because there will be 3 other plans out there, and if you don't have the best one, you lose.

So the way to solve the problem is to get more major parties to run for public office so that being slightly less evil doesn't automagicly mean victory.