Good points Connor

Candidates when they take the gloves off and act aggressively show a side of themselves that should cause you to question how they will respond to a crisis in our country.

Look at the contrast between leadership and a reactionary president.

FDR tried to reassure a nation mired in depression and attacked by a foreign power. Bush used 9/11 as a tool to instill fear and turn over power to the executive branch.

I disagree profoundly with Ron Paul on many issues. But I do respect the thoughtful way he addresses issues and the manner by which he refrains from personal attacks against other candidates. Glenn Greenwald took alot of heat from his fellow liberals for pointing out what is obvious to careful observers, that Ron Paul is a principled conservative, something that some of us liberals thought was either rare, or nearly non-existent.

I am really curious to see what happens…
(referring to the commercials and radio ad’s the candidates will run…)

I have been disappointed to see Romney engage in the mudslinging.

Asking for an end to it is doing it.

No mudslinging was one of the things I used to like about Huckabee – but as his profile has risen I have noticed that he is seems more likely to take some shots at other candidates as he receives more direct criticism than he had when his profile was lower.

I’ve heard it said that the the people who we hate the most, are those who are most like us.

E.g. Protestant versus Catholic, Jew v.s. Christian, Sunni v.s. Shiia, or Nephite v.s. Lamanite…..An outside observer might say that; (and he’d be right) “you people are arguing for no good reason!”

Mudslinging is a form of the fallacy of “Argumentem ad Hominem.”

Ad Hominem arguments are incorrect for two reasons. First, They are irrelevant; they do not address the validity of your opponent’s previous statements. By slinging mud, you are tacitly implying that you can find nothing wrong with all your opponent’s arguments; you have decided to attack their character instead.

Note: On the other hand, politicians these days hardly ever address their opponent’s previous arguments. If they could get away with it, they wouldn’t even mention the existence of their opponent.

Secondly, you are in a sense, calling your opponent a liar, when their credibility or competence is NOT the subject of debate. Ad Hominem arguments are only valid, for example, during a trial or hearing, when the credibility of a witness is in question. And only if they are specific in nature.(e.g. “the witness is not a doctor…”)

Using Ad Hominem won’t earn you a spot on your high school debate team.

Nevertheless, almost everyone has used such uncalled-for personal attacks from one time or another, and most people know next to nothing about logic or proper debate. Politicians only use such fallacious arguments because ignorant people respond to them, or because they themselves are ignorant……

Most politicians are trained in the school of business advertising; where any argument no matter how faulty is acceptable, as long as someone out there will believe it. Politicians are in the business of “selling” an “image,” not of exchanging ideas.

Finally, an old joke from Socialist-era Russia:

American: You have no freedom.
Russian: And you are lynching negroes.
American: You have no bread.
Russian: And you are lynching negroes.
American: We will kidnap your Khrushchev.
Russian: Then you will not have bread either.

Heh. I am staying out of this one. I have Strong Feelings.
Burnings in the Bosom and so on. I will watch the tennis match with great interest.

*settles in to watch the election proces*

I’m tagging you, Connor.

As usual, Connor, you’ve made me think; I’m not really sure what mudslinging is. I suppose I’ve engaged in it, but I’m not always sure where the line between ‘strictly restricting discussion to the topics’ and ‘my opponents’ complete embodiment of the counter-example has now become a valid topic’ is exactly.

For instance, last week I decided to post on (in my own blog)why I feel a specific weakness of Mitt Romney (his predilection for collectively slandering Islam) in particular is, unfortunately, the antithesis of what the nation needs right now. I did it because where I live too many people are falling right in line behind him on that issue for reasons that I find particularly illogical. But when I got done I *felt* like I’d been mudslinging instead of doing something more productive . . . lol and maybe I was.

So – and I gotta admit it was partly cuz of this post – this week I decided to post on some of the strengths I see in candidates . . .

One thing I thought was interesting after reading this post and gathering information for my next post, is that I was hyperaware of personal attacks by the candidates on each other.

And it does seem to be quite true that – while he isn’t perfect on it – Paul is considerably less likely to knock a particular candidate on a particular issue whereas you can always count on the rest (in both parties) to get in some real zingers about their opponents.

For instance, most of the Democrats are sure to knock Giuliani, Romney, (and Clinton) and most of the Republicans are sure to knock Clinton and Obama (and each other too).
I agree with you that Ron Paul seems to consciously choose to use his time differently than that which does strike me as really admirable.

But I’m still not sure how much of that you can avoid when part of the election process transcends the issues and requires you to evaluate a person you trust on issues that haven’t even arisen yet. It’s different than voting for a referendum, you really are voting for a person.

So I’m curious if mudslinging is just kind of an arbitrary term for ‘taking the necessary process of personal candidate evaluation “too far to the negative”‘. For instance, would your Orrin Hatch billboards (which I think are awesome by the way) be mudslinging?