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Highlands Today

Negative Campaigning Is Used Because It Works

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 12, 2008

In a presidential election year where both sides claim to be candidates for change, there's little new in the nastiness of the campaign. Comments concerning "lipstick on a pig" are being thrown around as if one of the candidates just stated he would declare war on North Korea if elected. It's ridiculous, and too many people are being whipped into a frenzy over it.

It started a few days ago when Sen. Barack Obama likened a policy McCain supported as putting lipstick on a pig. Although it might look better, it's still a pig. McCain's campaign leaders took this and ran. They insinuated that Obama was making a reference to McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, who made a joke about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was that the hockey mom wore lipstick.

Through all this indignation, the same folks blasting Obama forgot that McCain had used the same reference of lipstick on a pig several times in the last couple of months. Talk about hypocrisy.

This is just as bad as nastiness surrounding Palin's daughter's out of wedlock pregnancy. Pundits and campaign people tried to make a big deal out of something that was out of bounds. So the political dirty tricks are not limited to any one party.

If our presidential campaigns are about change, then actually change it right now. Stop the grandstanding, the dirty tricks, denounce the underground network of bloggers who will say anything, no matter how absurd, to attract an audience.

Of course, this is wishful thinking. The reason the campaigns go negative is because it works with us, the voters. We might hate it, but it moves the needle on political polls and decides elections. Perhaps that says more about us than it does the political candidates. No wonder Washington, D.C., is such a mess these days. The American people don't have the will to stop the madness.

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