Let’s not forget the “October Surprise” of 2000 (Bush having been a bit of a “boozer”, apparently). Kerry’s statement of being in … What was it now, Nam? Laos? Cambodia? I don’t remember right off…
He claimed to have been one place, and he was called into question by his old CO…or was it some other of his Military comrades?
Whatever. When the lying stops, and the issues get HEARD, we’ll all be better off.

And on another note: “Hundreds of thousands” of disenfranchised? Methinks you may be exaggerating yourself….

In all seriousness, the lying isn’t just a side issue. It is the main issue, especially when it comes to winning elections. When the lies are repeated often enough and loud enough, people believe them. The only way to counter that is to call bs when they see it. Lying, corruption, and poor ethics should never be tolerated from either party.

I won’t go into further detail here, but I suggest looking up anything on the concept of “the big lie”.

Right now, sadly, both parties are misleading, self-serving and are not much on principles. Republicans take personal responsibility and economic opportunity and turn it into bankrupting the coming generation, as you said. Democrats take adherence to principles of opportunity, education and safeguards and turn it into class warfare, jealousy, and buying votes by taking from successful and giving to those who aren’t (and Republicans do the same thing with corporate welfare and a reinvention of the Robber Barons (no - I don’t remember them personally). I read Kerry was going to be on O’Reilly on Fox and tuned in. He got asked some hard questions and answered them - couldn’t help but think if he’d done that before the election the result would have been different. But the answer that hit me was when O’Reilly said both parties have sold out the people regarding energy - told Kerry he’s been around for 20 years, call for independence from the Mideast has been around since Carter and both parties have failed. Kerry said “you’re right.” Honesty. Then asked him why ANY of you guys deserve another shot. Not much to say to that. But 98 percent of those guys get reelected.

And to my way of thinking, expending all this energy coming up with examples of who’s the bigger bum just plays into the hands of the power structure because people stay focused on personalities and old grudges (Israel-Hezbollah, anyone?) and don’t discuss what’s best for the country, absent a political angle.

Easy example. Kind of a mantra of mine. So Iraq goes away (nice idea, yes?). We’re still faced with jihadists who want to reestablish the caliphate and massacre every man, woman and child who doesn’t fit their mold of racial or religious purity. So Mr./Ms candidate for either party: what do we do about it?

The reason I ask is, I see a lot of “advice” from people who say the Democrats need to stop pointing out lies and corruption, but that advice usually comes from Republicans who wouldn’t vote for Democrats anyway, and it’s more than a little self-serving.

If that’s the case, thanks for your advice, but no thanks. When Republicans stop lying about their opponents (Swift Boat, anyone?), lying about what they knew (Richard Clark, Downing Street Memos, etc. etc. etc. is not “opinion”), and lying about the state of the union (no, a deficit that’s half of the absurdly high amount the Bush administration projected - which they do every year - does not equal a reduction of the national deficit), Democrats can stop pointing out that they’re liars.

Besides, have you read Robert F. Kennedy’s Rolling Stone article or the Conyers commission report detailing how the 2004 election was fraudulent (please don’t tell me hundreds of thousands of mostly minority and Democratic voters being disenfranchised isn’t fraudulent)? Not to mention how Katherine Harris had 54,000 Blacks stripped of the right to vote in 2000. We don’t need advice on how to win elections, we just need to be allowed to vote in them.

“One more point - this “lying” thing is way overdone.”

“…constant character attacks against a person who may have believed what he was saying has a way of backfiring and losing support.”

He knew the intelligence was cooked up. He knew there were no WMDs. Any statements from the administration denying these facts are disingenuous at best. I don’t buy the spin.