NATCHEZ — With less that two weeks before the City of Natchez primary election, some candidates admit they don’t love everything about the campaign trail.

At least four candidates in the race have already been on either the giving or receiving end of what many in town consider negative campaigning.

And those unaffected as of yet caution that there’s still time.

The most talked-about campaigning, which started early, has been in the mayoral race.

Candidate Larry L. “Butch” Brown, a Democrat, has been the subject of fliers that were mailed out by Mayor Jake Middleton’s camp that, Brown said, painted him in a negative light.

Middleton, however, contends that his campaign has simply been telling the truth.

Yet Brown said the negative advertising is an attempt to tear down the race’s frontrunner, which he said he believes is he.

“Negative advertising is a symbol of lack of platform,” Brown said. “It’s all about how a person is very, very scared, I guess you would say, and has nothing really positive to say about what they have done.”

Brown said he believes the negative advertising in the mayoral race has been excessive.

“I also think it has been very, very detrimental to (Middleton’s) campaign,” Brown said. “I think people don’t like negative advertising, and I think they’re offended by it, especially when the person doing it has nothing positive to say.”

But Middleton said he has not seen any negative advertising so far during the election.

“All the information sent out by the Middleton camp was facts,” he said.

Middleton said voters need to know each candidate very well before deciding which candidate will get their vote.

“If the truth is negative, then it’s negative,” Middleton said. “You have to face reality, and the truth is what it is, it’s the truth.”

Middleton’s mail outs have referenced Brown’s arrest on the coast several years ago after Brown fell asleep at a slot machine and got into an altercation with a security guard and his travel while the director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, among other things.

In the race for city clerk, candidate Temple Hendricks also said sometimes the truth is negative.

Hendricks has purchased advertising in The Democrat that points out flaws in her opponent, Donnie Holloway.

Hendricks said all the information she has presented in her advertising has been an attempt to educate the public the problems that exist in the city clerk’s office.

“My thought in advertising has been to educate the public (and) to bring a few issues to the forefront,” Hendricks said.