calling all pundits

[unclej]

you will seldom see me get involved with a political thread because i'm not very interested in nor knowledgeable of the subject. so this is not really a discussion type thread but an honest question to those of you that have made a study of such things.

in texas right now there are a lot of campaigns going on and with only one exception that i can think of they are all negative. "joe blow did this and lied to you about it." "jose schwartz is a crook and molests little children". when, in the history of state and national politics did it become all right and sucessful to run a negative campaign that not once addresses any of the real issues or allows the voters to get to know anything at all about the candidates? when did we get to the point that we accepted it as the norm?

 

[MissTaken]

When people started basing their votes on the crap as opposed to the issues.

 

[Bob_Bytchin]

when did we get to the point that we accepted it as the norm?

We don't accept it....it's the $$$ of special interest groups that forces it down our throats.

 

[christophe]

Actually if you look back in history politics has always been this way....now with the advent of the media it is availabel for all people to see!

 

[The Squid King]

What a pundit?

 

[unclej]

squid king, a pundit is a person that's very knowledgeable on a certain subject. it's commonly used to describe people who study politics. they're the guys that listen to the same political speech that you just listened to and then tell you what you heard.

christophe, i know that negativism has always been around but i've been around for a lot of elections and i remember a time when at least part if not the majority of the time spent campaigning was used to describe a candidates stand on the issues. candidates used to debate on the television or before that in town hall meetings. now it seems that it's all done with ads and sound bites.

bob, you're probably right and i don't know what could be done to change anything but i'm afraid that most americans have accepted it as status quo.