A new Kind Of Politics?

At the beginning of this election season, Sen. Obama promised us that he would run a new kind of campaign, with a new kind of politics, for a new world. Sen McCain said he would not stoop to crass remarks and dirty mudslinging, and in fact has renounced several attempts to disparage the Democrat Candidate.

But, frankly I just don't see this happening. It's traditional that the candidates try to cut the knees from the other and bury him in as much mud as possible.

The American people might say that they don't want this, but remember, these are the same folks that watch those reality shows where someone is trashed and thrown off the show and the same folks that watch automobile races to watch the massive 30 car wrecks!

Here's a recent article by LIZ SIDOTI at Townhall.com
For all the talk about John McCain's hard-hitting politics, Barack Obama is hardly innocent.
Both candidates and their allies are fully engaged in creating unflattering caricatures of each other that they hope will stick in voters' minds for the next three months.

Obama and his Democratic backers argue that the Republican is negative and offers nothing new, while McCain and his Republicans claim the Democrat is presumptuous and ill-prepared.
"They're cynical," Obama recently charged of McCain and his followers, adding: "They want to distract people from talking about the real issues."

One day earlier, the Democrat issued a fundraising appeal accusing McCain of taking "the low road" and stooping to "the same old smears" by launching "a desperate new set of attacks" each day.

McCain disputed that. "This is a very respectful campaign. I don't think our campaign is negative in the slightest," he said. His comments came the same week he agreed with a top aide's charge that Obama had "played the race card" and rolled out a TV commercial that mocking Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world" and asking: "Is he ready to lead?"

Brutal, certainly; effective, probably _ and that's why competitive contests typically end up in the gutter as each side works to draw contrasts with the other.

Nevermind that at the outset of the general election Obama and McCain each expressed a desire for a courteous campaign focused on issues and free of the brass-knuckle politics that have marked _ and marred _ presidential races.

These days, each skewers his opponent with regularity _ and even zeal.
The Obama campaign argues that he's drawing distinctions based on policy, while McCain has gotten personal by comparing the Illinois senator to lightweight celebrities and stoking the race issue. McCain's campaign defends its tactics, contends issues of experience, judgment and readiness are fair game, and maintains that Obama brought up race first.

This week, Obama stepped up his efforts to link McCain to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney _ and their associations with oil companies.

"McCain has taken a page out of the Cheney playbook," Obama said Tuesday as he blasted McCain on energy _ even though he, not McCain, voted for the Bush-backed 2005 energy bill that Cheney played a major role in drafting. Obama also unveiled a TV ad suggesting that oil companies had bought off McCain. It said: "After one president in the pocket of big oil, we can't afford another."

I thought Obama was promising a "new kind of politics"?
This doesn't sould like a new kind of politics to me! It sounds like the same ol', same ol'...

Obama is merely using fancy words to trick and confuse the uneducated.
There's absolutely nothing new about his tactics.

He's been on the Bush Bashing bus from the very beginning. He's called McCain 'another Bush'. He's said that electing McCain would just bring a 3rd Bush term. This is new politics?

Certainly, there's a difference in tone and style between the two candidates.
McCain is blunt and can be snarky, particularly when he doesn't think much of his target.
The Arizona senator recently asserted that Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign," and belittled him for the "audacity of hopelessness" in his Iraq policies. At one point, McCain said: "Sen. Obama told the American people what he thought you wanted to hear. I told you the truth."

One McCain commercial took issue with Obama's canceled visit with injured troops _ the ad was widely debunked _ while another used starlets Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to poke fun at Obama's worldwide following and suggest he's little more than empty suit. Separately, a Web video chided him as "The One."

Conversely, Obama is more stealthy as he attacks rhetorically.
He typically says he respects McCain. Then, he assails the Republican with a lighthearted, commonsense _ and sometimes sarcastic _ pitch and a smile.

On Monday, Obama quoted McCain lamenting the failure by Washington politicians to fix the country's dependence on foreign oil and said: "What Sen. McCain neglected to mention was that during those 30 years, he was in Washington for 26 of them! And in all that time, he did little to reduce our dependence on foreign oil."

Obama then ran down a laundry list of McCain votes and added: "He's been a part of that failure." But, Obama said, after "after years of inaction, and in the face of public frustration over rising gas prices," McCain is offering what amounts to an unworkable solution both in the short term and long term.

The Democrat didn't say it explicitly but that was a suggestion of political expediency on McCain's part.

He also took McCain to task for a comment about the "psychological" relief a gas tax holiday would bring to consumers and added: "We simply cannot pretend, as Sen. McCain does, that we can drill our way out of this problem."

Where does it end? Well, Obama will get nasty and McCain will finally retaliate. Ultimately it will be just like every other campaign, complete with inuendo, accuasations, threats and mistruths. It will be up to us, the voters to try and sort it all out.

Again it will be our choosing the one that smells the least like a pig pen.