Judging by some of the responses to my first entry and what I've read of other diaries, interesting posts that spark debate are considered trolling, and most people on here seem to enjoy posts that point out the blatantly obvious. So here's my contribution.
After the public learned that Haley Barbour's picture was on a Racist website, showing Barbour standing with a known Holocaust denier, Barbour surged in the polls. If this were simply an isolated incident, it might just mean that Barbour won the election by appealing to racist whites in Mississippi (a possibility that I'm not going to entirely rule out), but when you take into consideration Mayor Street's surge in the polls in Philladelphia following the discovery of a wire tap and Schwarzenegger's easy victory in the California recall following allegations of sexual harrassment, it seems fairly obvious that a trend is emerging. Prominent politicians who are beset by scandals have been able to not only overcome them, but turn them into possible advantages.
This trend is also apparent on a smaller scale in the Democratic primary. At the debates, both Howard Dean and Wesley Clark have been successful in responding to attacks simply by criticizing the candidate for attacking him. Joe Trippi likes to brag that every time Dean is attacked by another candidate, they raise a ton of money, and the recent Confederate Flag dustup only seemed to add fuel to Dean's fire. The other candidates have picked up on this too; Kerry, Gephardt and Kucinich have tried to label some of Dean's adds "attack ads" (and both Bob Novak and William Saletan have said that if these ads even qualified as attack ads, they would be some of the mildest around).
I would also argue that this trend started with the Impeachment trial. The Democrats actually won seats when the Republicans went after Clinton over a blowjob in what I would argue was a backlash against the Republican's idiocy. There have been exceptions to this rule, like Gary Condit, but barring suspicion of murder, the public seems to be really forgiving these days. Didn't Janklow enjoy public shows of support after murdering a motorcyclist?
Personally, I think this is a dangerous trend. Impeachment was stupid, but if a candidate is guilty of sexual harrassment, corruption or manslaughter, he/she shouldn't be able to march into public office without any difficulty.
And this is especially scary when the public's distaste for political attacks spreads to policy differences. I think it's perfectly fair to attack Dean for supporting Medicare cuts, Clark for flip-floping on the war (and voting for Nixon and Reagan. Damn), Kerry for voting for the war that he doesn't support, Bush for missmanaging the economy, lying about reasons to go to war and ruining this country, etc. Bush has been successful at creating a media image that puts him above the chaos of the Democratic primaries, unsullied by dirty politics. This is bullshit. He should have to answer the charges against him, and if the public is too turned off by "negativity", he won't have to.
This post has gone on way too long, and if I keep going, I'll forget my original point.