Here we go again!
You knew it was going to happen, didn't you? This week the candidates announced that it was "No more Mr/Ms Nice Guy." (As if it ever was!)
The count-down is on, and the attacks are getting more and more slimey. This is the part I really hate about politics. If only we could just have a CIVIL disagreement! Agree to disagree. That sort of thing. But no - Like kids on the playground, we have to say things that we can never take back.
Yes, I know, I once said I would never allow politics on my blogs, but I guess I have to retract that statement, given my recent history. Still, it's hard to think about hummingbirds, when there's a battle raging around us...
Is it "Politics as usual"? Do negative ads really work? I'd like to think they don't, but I believe the political wisdom is that they do.
As I understand it, both campaigns are reaching back into the past for the "guilt by association" technique.
It goes like this:
* Palin, who says "The heels are on, the gloves are off," has referenced a guy named Bill Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground group during the Vietnam era. This group was blamed for bombings when Obama was about eight. The issue is later, however, when both men lived in the same Chicago neighborhood and worked on the same charity board. Ayers hosted a 1995 meet-the-candidate event for Obama early in his career. Campaign aides say that the VP candidate has "denounced Ayers' radical views." The charge is actually not new, as Hillary Clinton brought it up in the primaries.
* Obama's campaign has responded to this attack with one of its own, dredging up an old McCain issue from 20 years ago. This one involves a man named Charles Keating (of the "Keating Five"). McCain participated in two meetings with banking regulators on behalf of Keating, a friend, campaign contributor and savings and loan owner, who was later convicted of securities fraud. The Senate ethics committee investigated five senators who had relationships with Keating. The panel later cited McCain for "poor judgment" in the case, and he has called it "the worst mistake of my life."
So, there it is - the skeletons in the closet, the ghosts of the past, rearing their ugly heads to haunt the 2008 Presidential candidates.
What do you think? Does it matter? Are these past indiscretions relevant to today? Is it okay to sling mud? Do you think it's effective? Should candidates keep to the "high road," or does that approach leave them at a distinct disadvantage?
From the dark and rainy hills of Tillman, Missouri, this is your rural reporter, Madeline, wishing she were back on a sunny deck high above Van Buren with no worries whatsoever....
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R.I.P. Politics!
Still....if a really good photo pops up, I may not be able to resist!!!!!