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Unnecessary roughness

The campaigns are taking a nasty turn

October 7, 2008

Strap on the hip-boots. It's getting nasty out there. Campaigns often slide into the gutter when time gets short and polls show one candidate pulling ahead. But there was reason to hope this year would be different. John McCain and Barack Obama each talk a good game about how much we want and need a new tone in politics. With real problems to solve, bipartisanship was the rallying cry, along with an end to the "swift-boating" of campaigns past.

But here we are, about a month from Election Day and the Obama camp is dredging up McCain's role in a two-decade-old savings-and-loan debacle, while the McCain camp is accusing Obama of palling around with a member of a 1960s terrorist organization.

Yes, Bill Ayers, a member of the violent Weather Underground in the 1960s, who's now a college professor, did hold a fund-raiser for Obama early in the senator's political career. They've also served together on a couple of boards. And yes, McCain did take campaign contributions from Lincoln Savings & Loan chairman Charles Keating Jr. and, along with four other senators, intervened on Keating's behalf before Lincoln collapsed in 1989.

But what has any of that got to do with today's sick economy, slumping home prices, two wars, crippling oil addiction and a raft of other problems? These are the issues the candidates should be talking about. We hope they leave the mud behind for tonight's debate. Focus, guys. This is important.