Here comes the mud!

As the Presidential election year comes to a head in October we need to prepare ourselves for the worst.  In spite of all of the important issues that we face as a nation such as the economy, two wars (did we forget about those?), an energy crisis, 40 Million Americans without healthcare, illegal immigration out of control, the restructuring of the Justice Department, and a whole host of others, the McCain campaign has decided to do everything it can to distract us from those issues by continuing to wage one of the most negative campaigns this country has ever seen.
The Obama campaign has responded in kind with their resurrection of McCain's ties to "The Keating Five" and the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and earlty '90s, as well as several other ads that are misleading.  But one has to ask themselves whether the Obama campaign would have come out with this if McCain didn't strike first by essentially insinuating that Barack Obama is a terrorist and/or terrorist sympathizer.  I would have to say, I think not, and the assertion that Obama is a terrorist sympathizer is ludicrous.

One thing is clear, McCain has taken a huge hit in the polls with the recent economic developments in this country and abroad, and Obama has risen.  This is characteristic of the American electorate, in times of economic crisis they look to the democrats.  As a last ditch effort to save a campaign in dire straits the McCain campaign has ratcheted up the negativity against Obama in an attempt to cast doubt on him among undecided voters, while the Obama campaign is doing their best to depict McCain as "out of touch" and show character flaws in his judgement; i.e. choosing Sarah Palin, involvement in "the Keating Five," flip-flopping on his stance on the economy, does "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" ring any bells?  Let's not forget the war, McCain essentially stands alone with his stance on the war in Iraq, not even the neo-cons support this sort of "perpetual war" strategy with no defined timeline.

This weekend we've seen Sarah Palin on the stump accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists."  We've also seen the media jumping all over this from both sides to purport or refute these claims.  What I find most interesting about McCain's strategy here is that in 2000 when then Gov.  Bush was running his smear campaign against McCain, Jack Tapper, a senior McCain advisor was quoted as saying:
"When the going gets tough for Governor Bush, he turns to the darker side of our party...they could care less how they get elected."  McCain, during this time, was quoted as saying: "I can look you in the eye and say I wanted to be President of the United States, not in the worst way, but in the best way."
McCain also was quoted as saying in response to the slew of negative ads against him that "sooner or later people are going to figure out that if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future or you don't have the ability to articulate it."
I can't say that much of this comes as a surprise.  Many of us know that the Republican base was not thrilled with John McCain being nominated to run for President.  McCain has done his best to pander to these constituents by switching his position on several issues such as his position on offshore drilling, the Bush tax cuts, executive power, and amnesty for telecom companies among others.  Not to mention the fact that McCain has employed several of George Bush's campaign advisors.

A direct correlation of this campaign staff switch, has lead to what we're seeing from McCain in these last few months: a last ditch smear effort to save his campaign.  The McCain camp is essentially throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks, and doing everything in their power to destroy the credibility of Barack Obama.  In a recent McCain campaign commercial the narrator discusses how Obama promised a higher level of discourse, to paraphrase, and then discusses some of the negative ads that he's been running in battleground states and ends the commercial with the words, "He lied."  

Obama in turn has been running a number of negative ads, especially on the radio which mostly go unnoticed by the media.  Both campaigns have been forced to fire back on each other, McCain needing to respond to Obama's ads that he's "out of touch" on the economy and the war, and Obama needing to respond to McCain's assertions that he's a terrorist/terrorist sympathizer, is sexist (lipstick on a pig), wants to teach sex education to children, and is off the charts liberal.
What strikes me is the difference in tone of these negative ads.  While the Obama camp tries to link their character attacks on McCain to the issues for the most part, the McCain camp's commercials have a different tone to them, meant to distract voters from what is really at stake in the election.  

I think at such an important time, where the markets are extremely volatile, parents are sending their children to fight for this country, only 12% of the population think the country is heading in the right direction, and people are generally fearful about the future, we deserve more.
We deserve more than partisan politics as usual, attack ads, distractions, lipstick on a pig, Sarah Palin, and general distortions of each others positions.  We need to have a candid discussion about where this country is today, where it needs to go, and how each candidate will get us there. What we need now is real leadership, and we're certainly not seeing that from the McCain/Bush/Palin campaign.  It will truly be depressing if the old "Rovian" political games play out here and the American people are duped into making one of the most important decisions of our time based on disinformation and distraction again.  One can only hope that this time, the American people will see through the smokescreen.