Negative Campaigning - WTF mate?

I'm sick of all the smearing that's occurring on national television in the name of "political ads".. pisses the hell out of me to see 5th grade name calling coming out of presidential candidates who are supposed to represent the future progress of the world. i understand that it's politics but whatever happened to highlighting ur positives than someone else's negatives.. are we in such a depressing state that our "leaders" feel that people should vote for them not because they are the best candidate but rather they are better than the other guy.. It's happening on both sides of the border and it's disheartening to say the least.

it's sickening not just because of two opponents trying to smear one another but rather because it's eliminating the fundamental decency of politics. Government is supposed to be for the betterment of a nation but what I've seen from Obama/McCain and Harper/Dion/Layton campaigns thus far begs the question "do we need better campaign reforms??" With every smear and every lie that is spread through the media, I can't help but think that civil debate has been replaced by a political cage fight.

Yesterday John McCain released an ad identifying Obama's relationship to Franklin Raines, the former CEO of now bankrupt Fannie Mae Corp. The statement can be seen below.

"Obama has no background in economics. Who advises him? The Post says it's Franklin Raines, for "advice on mortgage and housing policy." Shocking. Under Raines, Fannie Mae committed "extensive financial fraud." Raines made millions. Fannie Mae collapsed. Taxpayers? Stuck with the bill."
--McCain video release, September 18, 2008.

Now that you've seen what the ad said.. here's the truthful aspect of it. The evidence that McCain's advisers are talking about is the Washington Post which had an interview with Raines back in July where he was asked if he "was engaged at all with the Democrats' quest for the White House. His response was that he had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign and when asked about what, His response was "oh, general housing, economy issues." Furthermore, the reporter went on to ask "Not mortgage/foreclosure meltdown or Fannie-specific?" Raines's response was a definite "no."...

It's one thing to do negative campaigning.. it's totally a different ball game if ur gonna lie in it to sway the voters... To the majority of the voting public, this ad points out a negative characteristic in Barack Obama and shows him as a character who played a role in the collapse of the financial sector... It's sickening that such an ad was even approved by McCain and his advisers. Give me 15 minutes and I'll chalk up an ad with George Herbert Walker III (for those of u that don't know it's dubya's cousin not daddy) who happens to be a managing director of Lehman Brothers which incidentally collapsed last week. Oops.. I guess this can only mean that Senator McCain who voted with George Dubya 90% of the time had anything to do with the biggest collapse in the history of investment banking..

It is unfair to say that this game is one-sided as i'm sure there are comments that Senator Obama's crew passed with negative imagery.. but it's that much worse when the negativity is based off lies..