In between attacking John McCain for owning seven houses and 13 cars, Barack Obama recently decided that he has had enough of the Republican’s smear tactics. Obama declared that McCain is running the sleaziest campaign in modern presidential history.

But has the 2008 presidential election been all that sleazy? Sure there’s been a distortion here, or a snide comment there, but overall it has been relatively tame. So far, Obama hasn’t tried to launch an attack of Swift Boat proportions against McCain. In fact, he manages to praise McCain’s service in every big speech. McCain has questioned Obama’s readiness to lead and has even compared him to Paris Hilton, but we haven’t seen anything resembling Lyndon Johnson’s Daisy ad that warned of certain nuclear holocaust if Barry Goldwater was elected.

And if you want some downright dirty and offensive politics, there’s no better example than the presidential elections of the 1800s. Those honorable and esteemed founding fathers sure knew how to talk some smack. During the 1800 presidential campaign, the Federalists claimed that Jefferson and his Democratic Republicans intended to ‘murder their opponents, burn churches, and destroy the country.’ How do you even respond to that? Imagine trying to talk about the Alien and Sedition Acts while also having to spend time reassuring voters that you don’t plan on killing the people who oppose you. And all this time I thought nothing could top the offensiveness of the phrase ‘putting lipstick on a pig.’

While this campaign may not be as foul as those before it, it’s still a long way from civil. If you have been following this presidential election at all, you have probably realized that actually talking about the important issues isn’t as cool as it used to be for the media. And who can blame them? I know I don’t care about boring things like the economy, the environment or foreign policy. Who gives a rat’s Fannie Mae when we can watch every slip up, faux pas and flip-flop on cable news?

Personal attacks are all the rage this season. But even more hip and attention grabbing is how deeply a campaign can pretend to be offended by every perceived slight involving sexism, racism or ageism. When Obama says that he ‘doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills,’ the McCain campaign is quick to tell us that Obama is the one being racist, not Republicans. The way the strategists see it, it can be politically beneficial to be on the attack, but there is no role more highly coveted than that of the victim.

With all this mudslinging, I couldn’t wait for the debates. If the first debate was to be a reflection of the nature of this presidential election, then we were in for an entertaining night. Unfortunately, for the thrill seeker, it was one big disappointment. First of all, we had in Jim Lehrer, an ‘unbiased’ moderator who seemed hell bent on treating the candidates ‘fairly.’ What’s with that? Where were Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, or one of the fine journalists from Fox News? I think they are far better equipped to handle such an important event. Where are the pundits supposed to get their sound bites from if we don’t have a moderator who does his best to trip up the candidates?

I found the entire debate irrelevant. I wasn’t reminded once that McCain has more houses than I can count on one hand, and neither did anyone mention everyone’s favorite Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I noticed McCain was not wearing his flag pin; shame on you Mr. Lehrer for not making that a central topic of the night.

Instead, I had to endure an hour and a half of discourse over ‘serious issues.’ If he didn’t waste so much time presenting his economic plan, I think Obama would have found it much more effective to make snide comments about McCain’s silly ‘suspension’ of his campaign to work on the bailout. And what was Obama thinking, saying, ‘John McCain is right,’ several times. Aren’t they supposed to disagree on everything? As they droned on about something as lame as foreign policy, I held out hope that Sarah Palin would parachute in and lead a ‘drill baby drill!’ chant — but I had no such luck.

Where has this been the last five months? Do these campaigns really need spokespersons who are compelled to issue a scathing comment on every petty action from the opposition? As the dirt piles up, it becomes increasingly harder for the American voter to sift through it all and determine what is really important in this election. John McCain and Barack Obama proved Friday night that they are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves. Let’s keep it that way.

Neal Riley, a freshman in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].