It is a race marked with negative advertising that borders on character assassination. But the candidates for the 26th congressional district are not the ones slinging the mud; it’s their national political parties.

Ridiculous, venomous TV ads aside, we find both Democratic environmental attorney Alice Kryzan and Republican manufacturing executive Chris Lee serious candidates with solid credentials and decent values.

These are troubling times for the national economy, the environment and the hard-working people who live in the 26th Congressional district. Now that Tom Reynolds is retiring, there is a chance for a fresh start that has less to do with working the political turf than with finding solutions to put Western New York back to work.

We need someone who will look for ways to solve the plight of residents whose heating bills are eating up their grocery budgets and whose children are graduating from college and leaving the area for greener economic pastures.

We believe Kryzan has the smarts, the initiative, the dedication and the empathy to help lift us out from under the economic clouds that seem darker and more threatening in Western New York than in the rest of the nation.

We are impressed with her detailed plans to build up business, preserve the environment, explore energy alternatives and create good jobs in the process.

While Lee has racked up success as a business executive, we believe the program that worked for his firm, Enidine, is not necessarily a panacea for the rest of what ails the region. While he says his company did not export jobs to China, it did export components for assembly and use in China. We’d prefer an approach that creates American high-end jobs, low-end jobs and everything in the middle.

We didn’t hear Lee talk about partnerships with business and schools. We didn’t hear him talk about developing more skilled trades and technical courses for those not going on to college. Trouble finding work? His answer is to stay in college longer. He seemed out of touch with those who don’t fit the business mold.

Lee’s economic remedy is to keep taxes low, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and ease burdensome regulations on business. These are worthy goals, but they are not enough. With Wall Street near collapse, consumer confidence at an all-time low and unemployment threatening to climb higher, a more vigorous vision is needed for job creation.

Kryzan has that vision. She, like Lee, is a fiscal conservative. But it doesn’t end there.

Her plan is to foster a new business climate that encourages growth by taking advantage of our regional strengths. She would push for investing in alternative energy production to create “green” jobs, lower long-term energy costs, reduce dependence on foreign oil and help save the environment.

Lee’s first answer to the energy problem is to drill here in America, then expand tax incentives for promoting more energy-efficient vehicles — and then explore alternative energy.

We like Kryzan’s take on the energy issue: “Drilling in Alaska and drilling offshore won’t create a single job in Western New York. I want to focus on what’s going to create jobs here.”

She sees our many fine colleges and universities as leading the way for an economic renaissance. “Whether it’s reversing the ‘Brain Drain,’ encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship or creating the workforce for tomorrow, our regions have a crucial role to play,” she says in one of her position papers.

Lee seems to subscribe to the trickle-down theory that taking care of business owners will benefit workers in due time. While he says he doesn’t believe in running government like a business, his proposals tell a different story.

Cutting red tape or growing a green economy? We’ll take Kryzan’s answers as more innovative and immediate.