[Deckard]

All this kind of raises the question: who's most to blame? The candidate? Or the electorate?

The huge numbers of ordinary voters who respond to this type of campaigning? Or the candidate who simply accepts that reality?

The only thing that I keep coming back to in my head is the importance of education in any democracy. Not just of an informed public, but of a public that knows how to think. One with an awareness of the value in resisting the urge to respond from the gut, from fear and from ignorance. One in which intelligence is not seen as a bad thing.

Until we (any nation) reach that point, we'll always have this kind of politics, and the kind of dumbass news media that further encourages it.