How many times have we heard the statement, "This is just politics", made during some of the lowest points of this election? The people who make it act as if there is some immutable law of nature at work here. That we have no control over how we're talked to/at. That we have to suffer being regularly pandered to and lied to and pushed to the sidelines as if we have no say in how these things play out. John Edwards gets a $400 haircut; Hillary Clinton was in the White House with a blue dress; Barack Obama went to a school in Indonesia. All the while, the media plays on tire swings at John McCain's "cabin" in Arizona. Is this really how we want to spend this historic election?

After last night's debate, I'm saying "no more!". With feedback from Daily Kos readers, I created a petition telling the news media that we want a new kind of politics. The petition is intentionally general in scope because I, like many, saw last night's debate as a symptom rather than the entire problem. I'm tired of hearing "this is politics" as an excuse for having my intelligence and my integrity insulted on a regular basis. This is politics because we let it be politics. And we need to change that!

If you agree, please sign and help promote this petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/new-news.

Let the media know that we, the people, determine what's politics!

(sorry for the high horse...if only they didn't make me so angry!)

There have been some suggestions floating around the interwebs lately that, in order to cool the passions generated by this primary, we should remind ourselves that our candidate sucks. I think that's good advice, if you can manage, but it's not really that specific. It doesn't get into WHY your candidate sucks. So, I'm taking a different approach (inspired by Samantha Power). I'm imagining what kind of monsters all the candidates might be. Personally, I've found it to be an effective tool to provide some perspective.

For Hillary, I'm going for the obvious: zombie. The reason I say zombie is that I think Hillary is mindlessly following traditional campaign strategies that I don't find inspiring. And I get the sense that she doesn't really find them inspiring either. In fact, it seems that Hillary is most inspiring when she isn't being a "politician" but instead is being a wonk. In her most animated state, she can be smart and articulate, but she doesn't use those qualities to her advantage in a way that feels self-motivated. A Hillary speech can periodically sound like one long, low mumbly groan. It's as if she's being lead by her campaign people rather than leading her campaign. In my mind, that's very zombie-like. Plus, all the major news outlets say that she eats people's brains.

As for Obama, at the risk of sounding racially tone-deaf (somehow), I'm going to have to go with poltergeist. He can inhabit a space but still have an ephemeral quality. People are either frightened or possessed or just intrigued by him, but no matter what, we definitely know he's there. Whether he's a good poltergeist or not can sometimes be in question, and I may find myself wondering if I should exorcise him or rather help him fulfill whatever mission he needs to fulfill to be sated. Still, he may suddenly pull the staircase right out from under me if I'm not paying attention.

That said, these questions may not be the ones we, as Democrats, should be asking at this moment in time. I mean, this is an election year, and we are trying to take back the WH and all. So, the real question should be, "What kind of monster is McCain?". For that, I'm going with mummy (for obvious reasons).

In other words: Democratic candidates--Stop hurting each other and go slay McCain before he wakes up.