Who else thinks this?
It seems 80 percent of what you hear is just mud-slinging and character assassinations. Issues are being drowned in a brouhaha of insults and wild allegations.
Is this a problem with the American systems? All other western democracies I am familiar with are not like this.
Your memory is just short.
There were candidates who won elections by accusing their opponents of "matriculating" their entire four years at college.
One accused his opponent’s sister of being a "thespian".
(For the ignorant in Y/A, "matriculating" means studying at school. A "thespian" is an ACTOR, nothing more, nothing less, but rural voters were horrified)
McCain in South Carolina in 2000: Bush’s "push pollers" calling rural SC voters to ask them if they would vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered a black child out of wedlock and was raising that child as their own. He ADOPTED a black child, it has no genetic connection to either of the McCains, but he lost decisively in SC because of it, after a HUGE primary victory over Bush in NH (sorta like the one the other day there).
http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2000/11/14/sc_pols/index.html
An undereducated voting public is a scoundrel’s best bet to get into office. It also helps if you constantly engage in the Orwellian (or Neo Con) practice of constantly calling something which is white, "black", and vice versa. It was by this means a deserter during Vietnam is considered a "War President". This is how someone in charge of FEMA can do nothing to help US citizens after a devastating hurricane and still be considered to have done a "heckuva job". This is how an entire political party can refer to itself as "Strong on National Security", yet over 6 years after the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, Osama bin Laden is still free and at large, and we still have no actual fence along the southern border of this nation (not to mention the seaports and airports aren’t even a KINDA secure- hell Fox News doesn’t even show the "Terrorist Threat Board" on their news broadcasts anymore.
As far as the "mud slinging" and "character assassinations" go, when you cannot assail your opponent on the issues, you have no alternative but to attack them personally, accuse them of the most vile crimes and indiscretions (with no one iota of proof or credible evidence), ANYTHNG to get them off their message and start to have to defend themselves.
The wild allegations are thrown around because people (especially uneducated immature people) feels it is for some reason a "winner take all, all fair in love and politics" kind of attitude. If their ridiculous lies can sway just ONE person to change their vote, then they have accomplished their mission.