CAN WE STICK TO ISSUES PLEASE?

As the election cycle heats up, I have noticed a big increase in what I would call "tabloid" emails that will say something like "you must read this, it is scary but if you don’t have time please fdw it to all your friends". Think just a moment; would you agree to a contract without reading it? Would you agree to vote on an issue if you knew nothing about it? That is exactly what someone is asking if they ask you to forward an email that you have not read. I saw one the other day that was comparing Barack Obama to Bin Laden. I am not sure what mental dwarf came up with that but as someone said to me, "if anything were to make me vote for Obama it would be that kind of talk". At a time when the American people are sick and tired of all the political bickering, with major financial institutions failing, job loss, gas at record highs, environmental dangers, and failing infrastructures, some mentally deficient person or persons sends out such vulgar mail. It is one thing to try and attempt to make Obama an elitist, a bit weak when you consider a black man raised by a single white mother, but an entirely different thing to compare him with a terrorist. This is ugly and obscene, and to make an excuse for this type of person by saying they are ignorant and uniformed is simply not enough. It is equal to calling John McCain a coward. Hardball politics does not excuse this type of behavior any more than stupidity does.
The past 8 years has seen the Bush Administration use torture and then try and sell to the American people and the rest of the world that they were justified in doing so; a monumental national debt that now has interest of 1 billion per/day; gasoline at $4 a gal; corruption throughout the Administration; a cowboy foreign policy that has half the world afraid of us and half angry with us and we are quickly moving from the wealthiest nation to a debtor nation. The majority of the American people want these and other pertinent issues to be the topic of the political debate and not the mindless drivel so often seen on television and the ugly emails I refer to. Political debate is not only healthy but is the cornerstone of this thing we call democracy but no where does it say that civility is not also part of this process. It is often the people without facts and merit in their statements that have to resort to character assassination because they are unable to articulate a logical argument. It reminds me of growing up with a boy that would say, "I don’t like him" but when asked why, all he could say was "I don’t like his looks". There will always be people like the kid I grew up with but they are not the people that become part of the solution and the person I grew up with has long since disapered and as far as I know contributed very little.