An organization I was affiliated with got sued last year, by the Democrats, for this type of thing. The case got thrown out but it really opened my eyes to the level of corruption and hypocrisy involved with politics. There is, in many political circles, a "by any means necessary" mentality and it pervades both parties.
The idea that so much underhanded crap goes in to an election for a given candidate implies that integrity is an afterthought for that candidate, thus, the candidate shouldn't be within a country mile of an elected office. It's an indication of self service rather than public service and that's anathema to the ideals this nation was built on.
There was a reason that the founding fathers went out of their way to create a government intended to function from the bottom up. There is a reason they carefully enumerated the powers that the federal government was allowed to have and placed the responsibility for electing people to federal offices at the state and local level. They knew that this kind of corruption was part of the political process and tried to protect the people of this nation from it. Unfortunately, people being people, they soon forgot or never truly understood why those protections were necessary and why it was their responsibility to hold their officials to account for violating those protections.
That leads us to today where we are faced with voting for a politician who is the epitome of corruption or a totally unpredictable clown.
Maybe, some time in February or March, when the reality of the situation has had time to really settle in, the people will begin to understand and take responsibility for their apathy. Then again, maybe they won't.
