More Mud Than a Pig Sty

It's August, and the general election is still about four months away. Already, however, the mud slinging between candidates has begun. Locally, former representative Jim Slattery, a Democrat, is trying to beat out Pat Roberts, a Republican, for the Senate seat. And Slattery has already started in on a ton of negative attack ads against Senator Roberts. And, as with most attack ads, most of the information contained in them is mostly incorrect, at best. It's not the only ugly campaign going on. Lynn Jenkins and Jim Ryun are both vying for the Republican position on the ballot against incumbent Democrat Nancy Boyda. The Jenkins/Ryun ads are ugly enough. Once the primary election is over and Boyda and the Republican nominee start going after each other it's going to get really ugly, really quickly, especially if Ryun is her opponent. If I remember correctly, those two constantly attacked each other for months, often using subtle (yet powerful) means to avoid looking negative. Ugh. Such ugly political attacks are why I never want to run for office. I'm already sick of such horrible behavior, and it's only going to get worse once the primaries are over. I may be making much use of the mute button in the next few months, assuming I even dare watch TV at all.
Interestingly, the national election is getting ugly, too, although since Kansas is not a critical state, we're not having to put up with the Presidential mudslinging. Still, the news is constantly replete with mud-slinging, and, even more amusingly, accused mudslinging. Presumptive Democrat nominee Barack Obama constantly has accused his opponent's (presumptive Republican nominee John McCain's) campaign of playing the "race card." The odd part about that accusation: it's completely baseless. McCain has, however, run some attack ads against Obama that say he is arrogant and not ready to lead.
So, that's the current situation. Where do I stand on all of these candidates? Well, I'm not going to say definitely. In some ways, I'm not thrilled with most of the candidates, but I'm especially not excited about the two options for President. Obama and I disagree on just about every major political issue, and I think that the McCain ad about him being arrogant and not ready to lead is right on target. That doesn't mean that I'm all for McCain, however. I don't agree with half of his political positions, and I am not convinced that he'll survive four years of the stress of being the President. That will make McCain's choice of a running mate critical for my decision. (It doesn't matter if Obama picked Sam Brownback for his running mate. Obama already has lost my vote.) If McCain chooses someone who is a younger conservative who could legitimately run the country if McCain were to die, I think that I might vote for him. If he picks another moderate like himself, well, I'm not sure what I'll do. But I'll wait to see on that.
For now, I'll be sure to take a shower after watching any amount of TV to get off all of the mud that's being slung.