Given America's two wars and the continued economic meltdown - as evidenced by another stock-market nosedive yesterday - you would think John McCain and Sarah Palin have enough serious topics to discuss with voters.
Instead, they're offering "Lipstick On a Pig: The Sequel." And it's as bad as the original.
McCain is slumping in polls, largely because of his uneven response to the financial crisis. But running mate Palin has hit on a way to change the subject: by smearing Barack Obama for his loose association with Bill Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground.
Obama is "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," Palin said. She didn't mention that Obama was 8 years old when the group carried out bombings, nor that Obama has denounced Ayers' activities. It's enough, in her misguided view, that Ayers hosted a small political gathering for Obama in 1995, and that they serve on a charity board together.
This misdirection is reminiscent of the feigned outrage that poured out of the McCain campaign over Obama's "lipstick on a pig" remark a few weeks ago. Instead of giving voters substance, they're providing silly diversions. And Palin told an audience in Florida yesterday that there's lots more negative campaigning ahead. "Hang on to your hats, because from now until Election Day, it may get kind of rough," she said.
Can another visit via video to the pulpit of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright be far behind?
Obama's campaign has unleashed its own attacks on McCain's character, accusing the Republican of "erratic" action in the economic crisis. McCain's drop in public opinion polls indicates that many Americans share that view of him.
Obama is also dredging up McCain's role as one of the "Keating Five," a group of senators who tried to intervene with banking regulators on behalf of savings-and-loan financier Charles Keating, a friend and campaign donor.
McCain and his wife had made at least nine trips aboard Keating's corporate jet; they vacationed three times at his opulent retreat in the Bahamas. McCain neglected to pay back Keating for these excursions until several years later. And his wife and father-in-law had invested more than $300,000 in a shopping mall owned by Keating.
Keating was convicted of securities fraud; taxpayers lost about $2 billion in the bailout of his company. The Senate Ethics Committee later found that McCain had used "poor judgment" in his attempt to intervene on Keating's behalf.
Obama's camp clearly wants the Keating scandal to remind voters of the current financial mess.
Negative campaigning has one aim: to suppress voter turnout. So while Bruce Springsteen sings on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to enlist new voters, and voter registration is soaring to record levels in many states, the presidential campaigns are signaling they will spend much of the final weeks trying to discourage voters from going to the polls. That's not what this country needs.