My Pledge to Run a Clean Campaign

I decry the politics of personal destruction, and I aim to run a campaign on the issues, to take the high road. You won’t hear me talking about my opponent’s predilection for philately. That’s between him and his partner and whichever of his gods he reckons is responsible for that compartment of his life. I won’t even bring it up if he tries to interest a nine year old girl in his peculiar practice, although it is not something that I would ever do. I’m not saying I wouldn’t discuss it with my wife, although as we all know marriage usually means an end to such activities. Anyway, enough said. My opponent’s practices in the privacy of his own home have nothing to do with his fitness for the office he is seeking.

My campaign made up an ad suggesting that my opponent has been known to use public restrooms in airports and train stations for more than numbers one and two, if you take my meaning. I’m not going to allow the ad to be run, and to show the kind of ads I consider distasteful, I’m going to put this one on the internets as an example of how campaigns should not be run. Let it be a cautionary example to all.

I pledge that I will not exploit my opponent’s many personal weaknesses and weak character for political gain. I will let the voters decide whether his inexperience and stupidity should disqualify him from office. Maybe the voters don’t care about a candidate’s history of drug abuse and week long benders, and that is perhaps fitting and proper. Maybe, a candidate’s having murdered a prostitute has nothing to do with his ability to serve as president , and the voters will have to decide that issue. It won’t be me that brings it up.

Some may say that a candidate’s having trained in an Al Qaeda sponsored facility calls his loyalty and judgment into question. That’s for the voters to decide. Others reckon that a paranoid schizophrenic who is noncompliant with his regime of medications should not have his finger on the nuclear button. That’s for his psychiatrist to say.