The Trash-Talk Express

John McCain's "Straight-Talk Express" has derailed. It's hitched on to the Republic attack machine, and can now be dubbed "The Trash Talk Express." I used to respect John McCain, even if I didn't always agree with his politics. At least he had morals and stood by them. At least he stood for something. As such, I thought that this election season would be an interesting comparison of Obama and McCain, and an intelligent debate about their different approaches to the presidency. But McCain's campaign quickly went negative, and hasn't looked back.
Not that Obama hasn't run negative ads, but his started much later than McCain's and are at least based in truth and the issues. McCain's focus is routinely on the periphery of politics, taking Obama quotes out of context and making untrue accusations. Lipstick on a pig? Lindsay Lohan? Are those the issues that are important to McCain? Even Karl Rove criticized McCain's negative ads. And when Karl Rove says you're ads have gone too far, then you know you've gone too far.
Obama has consistenly tried to bring the conversation back to issues and specific plans to address the problems our country faces, only to be sidetracked defending against the latest outlandish falsehood perpetuated by McCain. So much for an intelligent dialogue about the issues. References to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears put an end to that pretty quickly.
McCain is weak on economics, and has admitted as much. So apparently his plan to deal with our weakening economy... is attacking Obama. "You're taxes will go up!" Sure, if you make more than $250,000 a year. If you make less than $150,000, you're taxes will actually go down under Obama's plan. What about the cost of the war that McCain wants to continue and Obama wants to end? We shouldn't pay for health care, but we should keep footing the bill for a war that should have never begun? No wonder a recent poll of prominent economists showed that they support Obama over 2 to 1.
McCain seems also to have abandoned what he previously stood for so that he could cater to the right. His biggest successes have been (1) his proposal to drill off-shore - an idea which experts agree would not have any effect for several years and does almost nothing to solve our energy problems - and (2) his selection of Sarah Palin. The choice of Palin was obviously made for political reasons, and with her as his second fiddle, his tune changed. Suddenly, experience - his biggest legitimate criticism of Obama - was no longer important. He also began trying to steal the "change" mantra from Obama. So the best recipe for change is more of the same ingredients? Furthermore, he's tried to pass Palin's meager experience off as extensive, especially her foreign policy experience - because you can see Russia from Alaska. Is that some kind of joke? Are people actually buying that?!?
But now, McCain has someone to spread the lies for him. She's lied about her own record (including the bridge to nowhere and earmarks), and has seemingly has no qualms about spreading more lies about Obama. She gives a good speech, but we've already seen from her first interview that she has trouble when not scripted, and her knowledge about the national and international scenes is limited at best - at least for someone who could potentially be our president. McCain's selection of her says a lot about his own campaign for president, and how it's come to whatever he thinks he needs to do to get elected.
This post has probably gone on too long, but so has McCain's dirty campaign. I hope I live to see a presidential campaign where both candidates run with dignity and respect, talking about issues that matter and letting Americans decide based on that. Seeing this election season, I'm not holding my breath.