Let's Knock Off the Mean-Spirited Negative Ads

I don’t like the negative ads of a personal nature. Not one bit! I recognize where sometimes they may hit the spot or put some question in some heads, but I just don’t care for the negative backlash that they create. I don’t want our campaign to be tainted with them any longer, and I say this recognizing that the McCain campaign is featuring negative ads 100% of the time.

Let the McCain campaign be saddled with that stigma. Most of their ads are petty, misleading or completely false. At least the negative ads from the Obama campaign have validity. But I really don’t care anymore. I don’t want to see another one that has nothing to do with policy or agenda. And I’d like someone from the Obama campaign to let the country know that it is shifting its priorities and simply don’t want to be running negative ads. They can say that they were originally created to answer the negative ads of the McCain campaign, but the McCain campaign, with the inflammatory attacks of Sarah Palin, the incendiary language used at McCain rallies, including the use of the words terrorism, treason and killing, have brought their campaign to a new low in presidential history, and that the Obama-Biden campaign just simply doesn’t wish to get down and play in the mud.

I like having Barack Obama referred to as appearing presidential while at the same time John McCain being characterized as old, cranky, even out of control and full of desperation. I like watching the Obama campaign fine-tuning its message, firing up crowds while I watch the McCain-Palin campaign shifting its rhetoric and suddenly trying to cast Obama as a terrorist or at least a friend of terrorists. The evidence that the American public likes seeing Obama and Biden as their future president and vice-president is borne out in all of the independent polling done of the first three debates, particularly last night.

We are down to the last month before the biggest election of our lives, and I want us on the glide path of honesty, integrity and making certain that people who once looked toward John McCain and become disillusioned become comfortable with the idea of a President Obama. Last night was very satisfying, but over the next 27 days, John McCain, Sarah Palin and Fox News will be coming at Barack Obama with everything they’ve got, featuring the most vicious, unfair and completely false attacks that they can muster. Let’s not give them any ammunition and instead stand tall, present what a calm and cool president looks like, and leave the rebuttals to the very competent surrogates that consistently appear on TV and radio programs for the purpose of clarifying or explaining the daily activities of the campaign and what’s true and what’s not.