Now you’re changing the terms. You agree to rules before a boxing match. You do not agree to rules before a bar fight.
All this frothing on about McCain being different in 2000 than now, whether or not he served honorably, yadda yadda reminds me of a joke I read on another board recently:
*While walking down the street one day a US senator is tragically hit by a truck and dies. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.
“Welcome to heaven,” says St. Peter. “Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we’re not sure what to do with you.”
“No problem, just let me in,” says the man.
“Well, I’d like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we’ll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.”
“Really, I’ve made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,” says the senator.
“I’m sorry, but we have our rules.”
And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar, and champagne. Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go.
Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises…
The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.
“Now it’s time to visit heaven.”
So, 24 hours pass with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.
“Well, then, you’ve spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.”
The senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: “Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think hell is the place for me.”
So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. Now the doors of the elevator open and he’s in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and
putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above. The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder.
“I don’t understand,” stammers the senator. “Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now
there’s just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?”
The devil smiles and says, "Yesterday we were campaigning…
Today you voted."*
This joke is stolen. You may not repeat this joke without acknowledging that it is my joke, because I stole it. Fair and square.
I hereby and forthwith acknowledge the stolen nature of Elucidator’s stolen joke.
Can you point me to the campaigning rules that political parties agree to before an election?
They don’t decide, we do. If we insist on a decent and respectful campaign of ideas, we will have it. When the people lead, the leaders will follow, or we reach into our pocket and squeeze their fuzzy little balls until they scream soprano.
But ‘we’ (the US voters) have ‘decided’, and through ‘our’ actions have shown that decent and respectful campaigning is not effective. If ‘we’ were all of the same mindset as the denizens of the SDMB, maybe the dirty/stupid attacks would not work, and politicians would stop using them. Alas, history has shown that not to be the case.
In this election, if Obama gets elected, then maybe that will be a message that clean campaigning works. That would be a positive development. Unfortunately, if Obama wins, I think it will mostly because the Republicans have screwed up so much in the past 8 years that not even their dirty campaigning could save them.
I think the Pubbies are determined to learn the wrong lesson from this. They’ll never learn not to campaign dirty, because they enjoy dirty campaigning so (almost as much as they enjoy claiming that they only do it because those nasty Dems make them do it). No, what they’ll learn is that they need to campaign dirtier in the future, no more Mister Nice Guy, nuh uh, next time we take the gloves off.
In fact, if I’m not very much mistaken, that’s the lesson McCain is about to employ in this campaign. All this talk about him coming out SWINGING on Tuesday night–what? he’s fought a clean, issues-oriented, decorous campaign up to this point? And I missed that? Damn, I thought I was reading all the papers too.