Negative Campaign Attacks are Hurting All of Us.

As each day gets us closer to the election I find myself feeling angrier and angrier and sometimes I don't even know how to feel about my friends and family members and fellow church goers who plan to vote differently than I do. The intensity of the rhetoric on television and in the newspapers and ridiculous email fowards has me in a constant state of agitation. I feel so strongly about my choice for President that I find myself thinking that the outcome of the election could change the way I feel about the friends I have who disagree with me. I realize this is not healthy or appropriate. But in my mind the choice is so crystal clear, so black and white, so right guy/wrong guy, that I find it difficult to imagine how people who seem to have similar values as I do could come to such different conclusions. And I'm sure people on the other side feel the same way about me. I am trying hard to control my emotions and to be reasonable, but the recent negative attack ads are making it very difficult. And of course we all say we don't want that kind of campaign, but even so we pay attention to those ads and they sway us. Politicians know they work and so they use every weapon at their disposal. If the negative ads didn't work on us, they wouldn't use them. If being kind and respectful and honest was what won votes, then all politicians would do that. But the divide and conquer method seems to work best as a strategy, and so here we are divided, angry, and hating those who disagree with us more than ever. Not exactly a great way to run a country. If we feel that way across political lines in our own country, how are we supposed to handle foreign relations across cultural lines. This is dangerous stuff. In my mind the negative stuff has been a lot heavier on one side than the other. But if you're voting on the other side, you probably think your guy has the cleaner hands. I'm not talking about SNL skits and stuff like that, I'm talking about stuff coming straight out of the campaigns themselves. Stuff like Palin accusing Obama of "paling around with terrorists" and trying to drag Jeremiah Wright back into the picture because they know how much that angry black pastor scares old white people. I think it's kind of funny how people can claim that Obama is a secret Muslim and at the same time tie him to a controversial Christian Pastor. Which is it? You can only pick one. Okay, so now I have revealed my view (if you didn't know already.) Maybe you're on the other side and have gotten your own earful of false negative stuff about your candidate too. The other day I saw an email forward from a friend that said she wouldn't vote for Obama because he's a secret Muslim and possibly the anti-christ. When I see stuff like that I feel like my head is going to explode. It makes me so angry! I don't think the negative stuff about McCain has been quite that insane, but maybe I'm wrong. If you want to read about some Christians who have responded to the falsehoods spoken about Obama check out http://www.matthew25.org/

If you have anything you think is helpful in despelling false rumors about McCain, let me know.