from YouTube.com
It's crunch time - four days until the election and no one is pulling punches. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are running on negative campaigns: The Dems are running on backlash and "enough is enough"; the Republicans are running on "Vote for the Democrats and the terrorists win" (seriously! Five years after 9/11 and almost as long since that became a national punchline). Fox News reports that $160 million has been spent on attack ads, as compared approximately $17 million spent on positive-message ads. As Fox says, "that's nearly $1 of nice for every $10 of nasty."
But nothing about this campaign is nice, not at all — not Foley, Hastert or Haggard; not the way the GOP jumped all over Kerry's admittedly clumsy remarks about the relationship between education level and serving in Iraq (even this conservative agrees); certainly not in the mudslinging ads that have been sullying the airwaves (ETP has referred previously to the almost comically appalling Harold Ford smear ad); and certainly not the death toll in Iraq, continuing strong in November from a record high in October.
Going into the homestretch, it's poised to get worse: As USA Today points out, since "neither side has much of a positive agenda to spotlight" — but plenty of incentive to go on the attack, knowing what's coming at them from the other side. Meanwhile, quietly but steadily, Karl Rove is doing what he can to tilt the scales in the Republicans favor (with some very convenient allocations of public funds, no less). Make no mistake: This is war, and in the next four days, it's going to be fought like one.
