Is it just me, or is this year's (still only summer) campaign season the dirtiest in recent memory? It's bad enough that the division between the two major political parties has become so polarized; now, within each party, the primary battles have reached a new nadir in mudslinging.
This is particularly true in my home state of Florida. For the governor's race, on the Republican side, Bill McCollum, currently the state's attorney general and an established party figure, is trailing in the polls to upstart Tea Party candidate Rick Scott. And the attacks have been frequent and severe from both sides. In the Democratic primary campaign for the Senate, Kendrick Meek and Jeff Greene are likewise slinging too much mud at each other with their ads (particularly by Greene against Meek).
I can see how the GOP candidates for governor might get a little heavy with their ads, seeing how the winner of the nomination stands a pretty good chance to win the general election against Democrat Alex Sink (who also stands a reasonable chance of winning). But neither of the Democrats for the Senate seat is remotely close in the polls to Independent (and current governor) Charlie Crist or Republican Marco Rubio. So with the Dems, the attacks are actually much worse to witness as they have assumed a very hateful, vindictive nature, reminding me a bit of Frodo and Gollum's irrational and vicious struggle for the ring at Mount Doom.
I personally like Crist and Sink for the respective races, due in large part to the fact that they are both political moderates who seem to understand that with their elections they would represent ALL of the state, not just those who share their personal political ideologies. And they do try to bring people together in consensus whenever possible (easier said than done).
Overall, this has been a very depressing election campaign season to follow. Hopefully, we can somehow get the bad feelings behind us after it is all over and work together to make a better society for ourselves.
Reality check: Sure, like hell we can!
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I don't see it getting worse; it's been about as bad as it's possible to be, for quite some time now. A few years ago, there were false accusations about extra-marital cheating in Tennessee (if I remember correctly), and in 2008 Elizabeth Dole accused her opponent in NC of being (gasp!) an atheist, as if that ought to be something nasty (she wasn't).
ReplyDeleteIt's bad enough when the negativity is about the jobs they're doing ("Ferd Berfl wants to raise your taxes!", "Herkemer Biffelwogg voted against the no-eating-babies bill!"), but it's truly disgusting when it gets to personal matters that shouldn't have anything to do with the election.
Ick.