All of this garbage goes a long way toward explaining why they can never seem to do right and do things like balance the budget, build schools that can educate a lot of people adequately, or for that matter attend to problems like the levees at New Orleans or our borders. What a rotten, festering mess it is, and the sooner they get about cleaning it up, the better. They won't get that done by stabbing each other in the back, we need people that can demonstrate that yes, they can in fact do the job they got elected to do, and that no, they do not have conflicts of interest that would prevent them from doing so. 9.14 or so trillion in red ink will not resolve itself, 08's the year to get people in there that are committed, math-literate, can read a map, comprehend concepts like 'inside' and 'outside', especially 'outside' because that's where a lot people are going to be sleeping if they don't get their act together on the lending laws, all that peanuty goodness, less with the pleasure yachts and private islands and more with the commitment to public service etc...

Attack ads these days are usually from the RNC pacs that did so well in 2004. They are guided or misguided by religious zealots that truly believe they are doing god's work.

Perhaps people could act like adults and not 5 year olds

Or how about election reform. Just have all financing come come from the federal budget. TV Networks can be required to perform their patriotic duty (to at least in part perform to FCC laws) and dedicate air time to debates with all of the candidates. Not just the moneyed ones. Same with newspapers. Information on candidate can be restricted to legitimate, fact based news reporting like on Fox news (sorry, I couldn't resist the joke). Of course we'd need media reform as well to counter networks like Fox.

The real problem with vicious attack ads is that they work. Despite the tongue-clucking and pontificating in the media, candidates who employ them generally win. But how logical is it to vote for those who employ such tactics? It says a lot about their character: devious, divisive, vicious and underhanded are adjectives that come to mind. And do those who have used negative ads match the adjectives? I think their post-election records confirm that they do. We've had enough swiftboating, hardball, triangulation, obfuscation, partisan bickering and deadlock in Washington and need to reject divisive candidates; Hillary Clinton is easily the most divisive Democrat, but on the Republican side almost everyone has this ugly trait.