The Way It Ought To Be

At the start of this campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama promised to run a different kind of campaign. And to be honest, I believed them - I had high hopes for Obama and great respect for McCain.

Unfortunately, as we've seen, that's not how it panned out, with the McCain campaign ad buys for the past week 100% negative and been focusing on just about everything but the economy and important issues - good old Republican character assassination at work. Despite running a much more positive campaign than most in recent history Obama's not guilt free either - he backed out of his pledge to take public financing (although I can accept the argument he's made that small donors represent a truer form of public financing, I also think it sounds an awful lot like the rationalization it is).

Wouldn't it be nice if both candidates could sit down and treat each other like human beings, disagreeing vibrantly but rationally on their stances on the issues but faceing each other like two reasonable and patriotic Americans, with good humour and good character? Wouldn't it be nice if that could happen?

Well, it still can - and does.