For the last few days it has been pretty peaceful. Up until election day the phone was ringing with ever increasing frequency. Current President George Bush left one message and former President Bill Clinton left two. Too bad I missed them, I had questions for both of them. The mail box is a lot more empty too. No more full color flyers that begin with “BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID” (an exact quote from one attack ad).

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Unfortunately, most of the messages were filled with fear. “If you vote for Roger Republican, the West Coast will slide into the Atlantic Ocean.” “If you vote for Donald Democrat, the East Coast will slide into the Pacific Ocean.” (I didn’t say these ads were accurate, either politically or factually). “If you vote for Diane Democrat, our troops in Iraq will be using paper plates for body armor.” “If you vote for Rhonda Republican, our troops in Iraq will be using spit wads for weapons.”

As usual, I went to FactCheck.org (a terrific site) to check out the claims of local politicians. Sad to says, the politicians in my neck of the woods were equally and universally misleading in their ads. I wante to vote for some candidate that didn’t use attack ads, but that means I wouldn’t have voted for anyone. So I voted for the lessor of two evils in each race.

An NPR commentator said this was a particularly dirty campaign with everyone throwing a lot of mud and hoping some of it would stick. There is only one reason for attack ads. They work. Too many people respond to the fear mongering. With a more informed electorate, dishonet attack ads would go away. FactCheck.org is just one source of reliable and unbiased information. Two years ago, several politicians referred to FactCheck.org to correct their opponent’s misleading ads. They didn’t do that this year, because they all used misleading ads.

If politicians won’t clean up their collective act, it is up to us to hold them accountable and let them know that we are on to their deceptive ways.