Just Stop Slinging Mud Already.

I have a beef to pick with the politicians of America.

It has nothing to do with the economy, taxes, health care, or even what they are wearing or how they do their hair. I have a problem with the way they campaign.

Why, oh why, do they (or their campaign dudes) insist on playing and replaying television ads that attack their opponents? Don't get me wrong, I have no problem when one guy's campaign ad shows the bad things that his opponent has done politically, but only if he also says how he could do better.

What I have no tolerance for are ads that completely pummel the opponent for something that does not in any way reflect the his political decisions. As a voter, I don't care if your opponent has had an affair or written a book or accidentally broken the leg of his best friend from Kindergarten. That's his problem, not mine.

I've lived in Virginia my whole life, but until last year, it was never really a big state for political competition. We are a republican state... or were...

But that changed when statistics maniacs and political gurus decided that VA would be a swing state in the presidential elections, perhaps even one of the most important. The result? A wave of political ads and endorsements for Obama and McCain. Obama ran a pretty clean campaign, while McCain played a little dirtier... as a result (combined with his politics of course) I liked Obama better. So did Virginia.

This year we chose a new governor. Because Virginia has some crazy law that a governor can not serve a second term, we had to choose between two new guys, McDonnell (R) and Deeds (D). The onslaught of TV ads began around May. Apparently this was a very important election. It was going to be Virginia's way of either supporting or denouncing their decision to vote Obama into the white house last November. If Deeds won, then we were affirming our love of the Democrats and everything Obama, vice versa for McDonnell.

Over the course of the campaign trail, Deeds was consistently on the attack. He used negative ads, twisted McDonnell's political records, and even dug up some thesis McDonnell wrote about how women are basically baby makers and that's it... maybe you heard about that? I know I sure did... daily.

McDonnell's campaign was more positive. I guess it was mostly because he was constantly being attacked and had to keep showing that he didn't actually suck at life. But, he campaigned effectively and as a result, was usually ahead in the polls. He used his ads to show that he was a good guy, to outline his politics, and to say that he was the better candidate, not because of how bad the other guy was, but because he had plans and a vision for our state and our failing economy. Even when his ads highlighted the bad things Deeds had done in his career, it was sort of positive and McDonnell used that to show what he would either fix or do better.

Personally I think that a different message was sent on November 3. Virginians elected McDonnell, not because we hate Obama, many exit polls across the state showed continuing support for him. And not because we think that McDonnell is the guy who will fix all our problems.

I think we just hate negative ad campaigns.