Castellanos is perhaps best known for a spot he created for Sen. Jesse Helms' 1990 campaign that showed a pair of white hands tearing up a rejection letter from a prospective employer. Critics say the ad intentionally injected the issue of racial preferences into Helms' race against Harvey Gantt, a black, liberal proponent of affirmative action.

A Democrat who worked for former Gov. Zell Miller of Georgia, a Democrat, in a campaign against Castellanos' client Guy Milner, a Republican, said negative ads are par for the course in any Castellanos campaign. "Everybody knows that he is a political butcher," the source said. "He's someone you don't mess with, because he runs some of the toughest ads out there."

The former Miller advisor cited a Castellanos-produced ad in which Milner's daughter told a harrowing story of the time her house was broken into and she awoke to find a strange man at the foot of her bed. The woman screamed and the man left, but the story was used in an effort to paint Miller as soft on crime and in support of lighter sentences for criminals. "It was heart-wrenching stuff," the former advisor said. "The only problem was [that the incident] happened in Nashville, Tenn., 15 years earlier, when [Republican] Lamar Alexander was governor. It was an incredibly negative, misleading ad."

This year, Castellanos produced an ad the Bush campaign decided to pull, apparently at the personal request of the candidate. The ad used a six-year-old interview with Gore in which he said neither he nor President Clinton had ever lied during their political careers. "I think it's appropriate to challenge the man's credibility," Bush said, referring to Gore. "I don't think it's appropriate to challenge the man's credibility in that context."

That RNC ad had one trademark of Castellanos' spots -- questioning the opposing candidate's credibility. Castellanos took on the president in 1996, when he was asked to run the media strategy for Bob Dole's campaign. Castellanos created a series of ads called "How to Speak Liberal," most of which never aired. Much like the ad pulled by the Bush campaign, these ads went straight to the issue of the opposing candidate's credibility. One spot showed Clinton saying, "I will not raise taxes on the middle class to pay for these programs." An announcer then provided a translation: "In liberal talk, that means ... I lied and raised your taxes."

Dole campaign manager Scott Reed put the kibosh on the ads, arguing that Dole could not call Clinton a liar. Eventually, Castellanos was thrown a bone: One of the ads ran -- without the word "liar." But the spot aired only once. Still, those ads have become part of the Castellanos legend.

When asked about the ads after the election, Castellanos told CNN, "It's out of the old playbook. It's like what we did to [Jim] Hunt" (who ran against Helms in 1984). "First we call him a liberal. And when he says, 'No, I'm not,' great. Now you're a lying liberal, and we call him a liberal and a liar. That is how you ease into the character issue."

Castellanos is also known for his refusal to back down. At a 1996 panel shortly after Dole's defeat, Castellanos continued to take shots at the president. "Clinton isn't fit to make Bob Dole's license plate -- though he may soon be doing so," Castellanos said. A journalist in the crowd felt compelled to respond. "Alex," he yelled from the audience, "get over it."

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