Lisa, welcome to the Cat and thanks for a thoughtful post.

While it appears illogical that the virtues of rhetorical talent, leadership, vision and inspiration should be degraded by mudslining, I don't think logic is one of the requirements of heated political competition. The effort is to push buttons that will make people veer away without thinking, and to automatically instill dislike, fear, doubt and evenr epugnance by painting distorted or false images of another person, so that (so goes the general notion) one will get votes from those who buy your button.

Personally, I am much more responsive to those who try to push positive buttons, things tor each for and ideal scenarios to strive toward, and who speak clearly about the policies such ideals woudl require.

But some folks think hate-versus-hate is the natural order of things. You can even find a few of them around here, althoguh I would say they are in a minority.

A