He Said, She Said

The media loves gossip. Especially when it comes to the 2008 presidential campaign. Well, it may not be the media that loves gossip, more like the readers and viewers who love hearing the candidates battle it out. Either way, the coverage of the 2008 campaign has been a muddy fight.

All I had to do was type in “Obama said Clinton” into Google news and hundreds of links to stories reporting what the two said to each other pops up. Recently Clinton’s aide, Billy Shaheen, said something about Obama’s drug use in his younger days. This dirty little secret was splattered all over the news. I guess Clinton realized that this tactic was not very appealing to potential voters so she formally apologized. It wasn’t until December 15th that Obama talked to the press about the whole incident. What’s the deal with all of this bashing? Well, when the going gets tough then the tough gets going.

Abc new’s political blog had this comment of Obama’s about the issue: “On the Clintons' tactics: More broadly Obama was asked if Bill, Hillary and Shaheen’s comments were intended to make him angry or feel demeaned. Obama said, “When I was 20 points down, they all thought I was a wonderful guy. Obviously, things have changed here in Iowa and the rest of the country, and that's the kind of politics we've become accustomed to.”

If your leading the race, and we all know that the media has been treating the 2008 campaign as a horse race, then there is going to be much more attention on you. The New York Times online has a nice interactive chart that shows all of the candidates and who has talked about them. Interesting, but does the public really need to analyze the mudslinging of the candidates? What about the issues? As a potential voter I really could care less about what each of the candidates are saying about each other. I want to know what the candidates are saying about the issues. The future president should not be voted for because they know how to throw it down like a middle school recess fight.