Maybe it’s been the four years since the last presidential primaries that have dulled my memory somewhat, or maybe it’s a mild selective amnesia that takes the edge off highly unpleasant thoughts, but I don’t remember any past presidential primaries where I’ve been as disgusted with the debates, the rhetoric and the degree of malice and vitriol as this one.
The media has taken great delight in turning the debates into juvenile mudslinging contests with the “respond if your name is mentioned” format designed to extend the noxious back and forth ad nauseam and in essence circumventing the important issues the voters so desperately want to know.
The point is that, at least in my opinion, America never really gets to know a candidate, it’s as if we, the voting public are supposed to take the word of the pundits and talking heads who come at us from both sides of the political spectrum, more interested in personalities, anecdotes and any breath of scandal or disgrace, no matter how ancient or trivial.
America never got to know Barack Obama before electing him, not really.
Were the depths of his desire for fundamentally changing America, his disdain for what America is and his commitment to transforming it into a Socialist nation really revealed?
