At a rally last week for Kentucky Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul, a protestor had her face and neck stomped on by a Paul supporter.
A month earlier, New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino and a New York Post reporter had to be physically separated during a shouting match after Paladino threatened to "take out" the Post reporter. Then, in a smear campaign intended to imply that his Democratic opponent Andrew Cuomo was involved in extramarital affairs, Paladino declared that Cuomo's sexual "prowess is legendary" and later criticized Cuomo for attending a gay pride parade with his young daughters.
These are not isolated incidents common to any election season — this kind of ugliness has come to define the 2010 election cycle.
Much of the blame lies with the Tea Party movement, which champions voter anger and anti-incumbent fervor without laying out any coherent plan for how the next Congress should do a better job than the current one.
Along with any pretense to moderation or civility, the issues have this year taken a backseat to spectacle and personal attacks.
In times of crisis, the American people need practical solutions. We need new economic policies; we need rational, innovative, levelheaded leadership — we do not need decade-old clips of Delaware Republican senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell talking about witchcraft or a detailed account of candidates' sexual histories.
What America needs is sanity — and few in the media are providing it.
On the left is Keith Olbermann, who spends his nightly talk show on MSNBC explaining why various Republicans are the "worst persons in the world."
On the right is Glenn Beck, echoing the cries of the Tea Party Movement to "restore honor" to America and "put government back on the side of the people," without any concrete suggestions as to how Americans can accomplish such lofty goals, other than to take the first step of booting every single Democrat from political office.
Objective news outlets like the Associated Press are similarly guilty for feeding into the current climate of anger. The operative verb in most political AP headlines these days seems to be the word "slam," as illustrated in the Oct. 26 story, "Ben Stein slams Joe Miller, calls Alaska Senate hopeful ‘dangerous, stupid clown.'" Rather than giving coverage to the political agendas candidates will take with them to Washington, the media focuses its attention on reporting the personal insults, witty one-liners and character assassinations that candidates fling at each other.
Perhaps this is the way it's always been. That the mainstream media is more concerned with sound bites and fanfare has for years been a constant refrain among its critics.
But amid this climate of desperation and frustration, the power of the media to distract and infuriate voters is even more dangerous.
In the current divisive political environment — and with the media exacerbating voter divisions — an unlikely source has emerged to espouse the virtues of moderation and compromise: a political satirist from Comedy Central, Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show."
The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear should be a reminder to the American people, their media and, particularly, their representatives, that, as Stewart said, "if we amplify everything, we hear nothing." The American people must not allow anger and frustration to demonize their political opponents, and the media must avoid deepening political divisions in the name of sensationalism.
"Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done — not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done," Stuart said at the rally.
To get anything done, our representatives must look beyond political divisions to craft policies that are in accord with our values and principles as Americans. More obstructionism and more character assassinations will only result in another political stalemate. As we have seen this election cycle, division will only breed more division.
