After a primary campaign characterized largely by political-practice complaints and negative ads by Republicans Bob Brown and Pat Davison, as well as attacks on Brian Schweitzer by far-behind John Vincent, it was kind of nice the day after the election to see Brown and Schweitzer falling over themselves to be first to offer "clean campaign" pledges.

Nice ... but realistic? We'd like to think so, but too often such pledges have been honored mostly in the breach.

The pledges offered by the two candidates for governor differed -- not surprisingly, since Brown has a long legislative record to defend while Schweitzer has yet to hold public office -- but we suspect that compromise wording won't be hard to work out. The problem isn't writing a pledge. The problem is keeping it.

That's because as much as voters may be turned off by attack ads, such ads have an unfortunate tendency to be effective. Keep pounding away at an opponent, whether the story line is fair or not, and a lot of people start to believe what you're saying. That's why campaigns can turn ugly in a hurry -- when one candidate goes on the attack, it isn't easy for the other to stay on the high road.

But attack ads are all about winning, not about what's best for Montana. This year's gubernatorial contest should be about new ideas, not the art of bad-mouthing an opponent. Brown will stress his governmental experience, but after years of Republican control of the state he also will want to promise his administration will do a lot more than merely stay the GOP course. Fresh ideas will be the centerpiece of Schweitzer's campaign, but he will want to demonstrate exactly how this "outsider" will achieve results in the political and governmental real world.

This is vital stuff, and it will take positive, informative, and honest campaigns to spell out for Montanans which candidate can best address the complicated problems facing the state. Negativity is worse than useless, it cheats voters of what they really need to know.

If we were cynical, we'd suggest that these clean-campaign pledges will be kept -- at least until the race becomes close, or until one candidate falls behind.

Instead, we'll assume the best of Brown and Schweitzer, and sit back to enjoy a positive and enlightening campaign. After all, anything else would just be about winning, not about the rest of us.