Editor Note

I've tried to do my best not to cover the trash and smear politics that has been thrown out by both campaigns during this election. Obviously both candidates have failed to live up to there promises of running a strictly, 100% civil and issue based campaign.  It has been cleaner than many previous elections and people that say otherwise weren't around for, at the very least, the Nixon election years (that isn't to solely blame Nixon by any means, simply his election years).


There are so many staunch differences on the issues (in their policies) that attacks on anything but policy are, excuse me, rather should be useless. Well I was watching FOX News Sunday w/Chris Wallace today and was struck by what Karl Rove had to say as I agreed 100% with his main point which was that both campaigns are going too far in attack ads and that there has been a childish air to them (excerpts without his specific examples):

Both campaigns are making a mistake, and that is they are taking whatever their attacks are and going one step too far.

— similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to...things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test.

They don’t need to attack each other in this way. They have legitimate points to make about each other that are beyond, you know, the…

But both campaigns ought to be careful about it. They ought to — there ought to be an adult who says, “Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don’t we make our point and won’t we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don’t include that one little last tweak in the ad?”

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McCain's attack ads: Food for Thought

When Paris Hilton attacks back, your own mother (McCain's) calls them pathetic, and the general consensus is that they're a bit juvenile and silly....they're working. What does that say about the voting public? That they're seeing the debatable substance (meaning only about half of the content said as fact has been found to be actual facts) that takes place at the end of the ad's or that as much as North American's love the tabloids they don't enjoy their presidential candidates being almost at that level of celebrity? Or is it they've forgotten that Sen. McCain is the one who has appeared in multiple movies, on SNL multiple times, and had to scrap his reference to him being a celebrity on his own campaign web site before he ran the ads? Most likely it has to do with Sen. McCain being substance and being frank with the country even while being a celebrity. The Obama campaign could try to do a counter ad showing Sen. McCain in all of his cameos but they simply wouldn't have the same effect. Obama's people are in a bind on this one because he just doesn't have the connection with the country that McCain does, he isn't allowed the same free passes that Mr. McCain is allowed.

Take the time Sen. McCain had to be corrected by Sen. Lieberman or the Pakistan border misstep. When both mistakes were made even Democrats admitted the reason those weren't turn into political attacks is because everyone knows Mr. McCain understands what is going on in the Middle East and one misstatement doesn't mean he has forgotten everything he knew about our situation over there.

In no way is this a fair double standard but it is reality and 20 years from now, whether Mr. Obama wins or not in November, he'll be afforded the same "courtesy". The McCain brand has a long standing foot hold in this country’s eyes, his "favorable view" ratings have probably never dipped below 50% and that is hard to accomplish.

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