"What on earth leads you to the conclusion that liberals are libertines"

By destroying your opponents through any means - the ends justify the means.

This is unfortunately pretty normal US political debate (as us foreigners see it!) - and works really well on a fairly uneducated ignorant electorate... It also sadly reflects just how ignorant and uneducated politicans are who use these tactics - if they really believe this rubbish - or that they are really nasty, misleading, malicious and untrustworthy if they do know the real meaning - in neither case they should be elected!

Usually in Australia the media catch these turkeys out - or one of the other many minor Aussie parties get acres of space for pointing it out... one of the drawbacks with the US 2 party circus...