John Kerry says he hasn’t: “I haven’t spent one dime in my campaign on a negative ad.” - quoted by Bob Dole in an MSNBC interview.

I heard a clip of Kerry making a similar statement during a recent campaign rally, one that doesn’t appear to be online. I believe it was August 20; the campaign website does not offer a transcript from that day. While it’s possible that I misheard him, he has made this claim before: “I haven’t run one negative advertisement. I didn’t run one ad against my opponents in the primaries in Iowa or New Hampshire and I have not spent negative money attacking George Bush.”

As I’ve noted before, that doesn’t seem to be true.

MSNBC on May 31: “Kerry has run 13,336 negative ads — or 27 percent of his total. The figures were compiled by The Washington Post using data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group of the top 100 U.S. markets. Both campaigns said the figures are accurate.”

USA Today on July 1: “Five of Kerry’s 14 major ads have been negative.”