BOISE, Idaho - If voters are influenced by the saturation of negative television ads in Idaho's 1st Congressional District, they'll likely go to the polls Tuesday deciding between an "idiot" and a "liberal."

Polling shows the race between eight-term state Rep. Bill Sali, a Republican from Kuna, and Democrat Larry Grant, a former executive at Micron Technology Inc., as a toss-up.

Attack ads, like the race's name-calling spots that rule the airwaves, are relatively foreign in Idaho. The state is a Republican stronghold that has seen few competitive races, and until this year, Idaho remained one of the last bastions of corndog and county fair politics, said Jasper LiCalzi, a political science professor at Albertson College of Idaho.

The escalation of attack ads, with their sinister soundtracks and venomous claims, has forced both Sali and Grant to press around-the-clock fundraising efforts to pay for their latest attacks instead of focusing on traditional door-knocking and retail politics, LiCalzi said.

"It's like the old arms race. You have to keep up," he said. "There's been more money in it. More slick ads and mailers. Idaho is catching up with the rest of the country."

The mudslinging did not sit well with Bob Nauman, 50, as he drank a Bloody Mary and watched a University of Michigan football game at a Boise brewery Saturday morning.

Nauman, a registered Republican who doesn't vote straight-ticket, said a Grant ad saying Sali voted to raise taxes is dishonest because Sali supported a property tax cut that was partially offset by a penny-on-the-dollar sales tax increase. But, Nauman is also wary of Sali's reputation as difficult and combative.

"If you want the truth, you have to do your own research," Nauman said.

On Oct. 17, the National Republican Congressional Committee rolled out a negative ad slamming Grant as a tax-raising liberal.

Since then, Grant has run a spot with a quote from former Republican state House Speaker, Bruce Newcomb calling Sali an "absolute idiot." The insult scrolls next to a picture of a yellow-faced and saggy-eyed Sali that makes the candidate look like a corpse.

Then came the ads paid for by the Club for Growth, an anti-tax lobbying group in Washington, D.C., calling Grant "too liberal for Idaho." Another ad shows a snapshot of Grant with a wide clownish grin and veins popping in his neck.

In former Sen. Jim McClure's day, campaigns were not fought through the proxy of television. The Republican served three terms representing the first district in Congress before winning a Senate race in 1972.

McClure, who is supporting Sali, remembers traveling the nearly 700-mile-long district in a Winnebago, speaking in grange halls and town squares.

"There's only one thing the candidate can do that nobody else can do and that's shake hands," he said. "I hate negative advertising and the negative campaigning. It makes the process so distasteful, but it has proven to be successful."

Former Democratic Gov. John V. Evans remembered his campaign bus tour that traveled to each county, dubbing each new stop "Capital for a Day."

"That's the way we did it," he said. "They're just so negative now. It's really shocking to an old-timer like me."

Sali made an appearance at the Canyon County Fair and Grant painted his brother's donkey in his campaign colors, but LiCalzi said neither candidate has done much traditional politicking.

He said both candidates could gain a foothold if they followed the example of famous face-to-face campaigners like former Republican Gov. Phil Batt who traveled the state in a green pickup known as the "Batt Mobile," decorated with paper cutouts of bat wings.

"People used to have coffee at the house or call and talk politics. Now it's recorded calls," LiCalzi said.