Politics American Style: which side ran the ';cleanest'; campaign & did that affect how you cast your vote?

Which side ran the dirtiest (smear) campaign %26amp; did that affect your perceptions of the candidates?Politics American Style: which side ran the ';cleanest'; campaign %26amp; did that affect how you cast your vote?
I assume you mean in the Obama/McCain race and not the whole election?





Well, I didn't see many ads 'cause I don't watch TV much, but during the debates I did take note that Obama seemed a bit more respectful toward McCain than the other way around.





On the split screens you could just see McCains reactions (the smirks and the eyerolls) and see his body language, such as not not looking his opponent in the eye or addressing him sometimes what seemed to be a condescending manner.





In choosing a candidate, I went down the list of issues that were debated and I was just about at 60/40, with only one issue separating these two candidates for me.





So yes, It did affect my perception and ultimately my vote.


Politics American Style: which side ran the ';cleanest'; campaign %26amp; did that affect how you cast your vote?
We were largely ignored entirely by one side in favor of I guess going after more people per dollar, so I can't really address that very well. The only ads I ever saw from them within 2 months of the election were financed by people other than the candidates themselves.





As far as our state/local races. . . both sides were rather ugly if either one of them was. I don't know that it really affected me much -- some of the time what someone was getting dragged through the mud about was something I thought made perfect sense and maybe even supported. Go figure.
Yesterday afternoon (Australian time) I watched the two speeches.





When McCain made his very dignified speech, he spoke of Obama at one point and people in his audience booed and carried on so he had to shush them.





When Obama made HIS speech, he spoke of McCain's record of service to his country, and people clapped.





From the outside looking in, that pretty much summed up the campaigns of both, I think.





Cheers :-)
The cleanest campaigns were the ones you didn't see on lamestream TV. Hence Obama and McCain are disqualified from contention.





One reason I voted for Baldwin was that he didn't pollute my TV screen with lame ads. I can't say the same for the Republicrat operatives.
I don't watch political ads. I look up voting records and policies as well as past quotes from non-bias sources. Ads are meant to prey on your emotions, not your intelligence. As a result, I feel its much better to do ones own research for answers.





And, from practicing this method, I chose McCain.
Please, the Republicans spoke more of how bad the Democrats are than how they intended to make things better. I thought Obama's campagn was unusually clean.
My typical reaction when I see a political ad is to turn away. They're a waste of time.





I voted for McCain because of his political beliefs compared to Obama's.
I think McCain's campaign was far more negative than Obama's, especially in the last couple of weeks. Voters must have heard enough ';He's going to raise your taxes!'; by some point.
There was mud slinging on both sides, but I think the Republicans threw more. I voted based on the issues, but I did get sick of hearing people bashed
I voted for McCain who I know can both talk the talk and walk the walk. His campaign was rather negative but it was the truth about Obama. That being said, it is not far-fetched to say that Obama bought the election and there is an end to campaign finance reform which Obama has been hypocritical on.