Is America setting up for its filthiest election campaign ever or is my memory just short?
Posted on March 2nd, 2010 by admin
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.
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Hillary is like an animal when she’s cornered. It can get brutal.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 12:53 pm
I’ve noticed that we don’t hear much about the Republican candidates. All we hear about is the Democrat candidates. And everything we hear about them is personal, not issue-based.
I don’t CARE if Clinton’s tears were real. I don’t CARE what church Obama belongs to. I don’t CARE, I con’t CARE, I don’t CARE, because not ONE of these things makes even the slightest bit of difference in my life.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Yes American politics has always been a dirty game and there is no room for the weak. Sometimes negative campaigning works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I don’t think it will ever change.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Why would the election be above the normal level of discourse?..at least with liberals in yahoo
check out Michael G’s lies..
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March 2nd, 2010 at 2:24 pm
The American electorate would rather have our policy and views shaped by our Corporate Media. This is why the personal assassinations and mug slinging continues.
Simply, the majority of us lack the capacity or willingness for critical thought about what the REAL issues are.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 2:47 pm
four years ago, Bush was saying Kerry lied about his Purple Hearts from Vietnam, 8 years ago Bush was saying McCain had an illegitimate child.
I have not heard any dirt like that this time.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Every election consist of mud slinging, it has been that way for years, the character assainations have been pretty weak so far. In America though we have free elections which most countries don’t, our leaders aren’t slain on a monthly basis and we don’t have royalty that we can’t get rid of that has handed down power in the same family for centuries. So I guess we aren’t to bad off.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Mudslinging is better than just shooting your opposition as they do in some countries.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Yes the Democtrats are Terrible. That’s why I’m voting GOP
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March 2nd, 2010 at 4:55 pm
This behaviour when I studied mudslinging in Civics and government in the 80’s was almost completely forboden of a winning candidate. Then along came Rush and the Neo-Cons, and the face of elections have slowly been changing and getting worse and worse each time we have them. Actually, I remember when Bush 1 calling Reagan’s Economic policy "Voodoo Economics" when they ran against each other in the 1979-1980 primaries as a pretty big bout of mudslinging. People were actually shocked.
How far we’ve come.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Your memory is short or, your just too young. We probably won’t see anyone breaking into the DNC offices to plant bugs or, keeping enemies lists like Nixon.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Politics has always been a nasty full-contact sport. It has never been civil.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Your probably too young then to remember George W. Bush’s run for the white house and then there was his attacks on John McCain and then four years later on John Kerry. Not to mention with the help of Fox news they were able to make John Kerry appear to be a flip flopper.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 6:36 pm
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.
References :
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:08 pm
I just want to see how filthy our citizens get if a ‘dark skinned’ president is elected
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