More Mud

For weeks now the e-mails have been arriving daily, sometimes hourly, from the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania.

State GOP leaders, like their Democratic counterparts, are burning up cyberspace in the countdown to the Nov. 7 election, using the electronic medium to woo voters. No problem there. Every candidate deserves to be heard. It's the bedrock of democracy.

But what I do have a problem with is the snarky tone of many of the messages clogging my in-box, specifically the mean-spirited name-calling.

Gov. Rendell is regularly referred to as "Fast Eddie," as though he were a loan shark with a cigar in his teeth. "Fast Eddie wants to raise our taxes again," a recent release begins. "Fast Eddie still up to his old tricks," a headline in another blares.

State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., the Democrat trying to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, is always "Bobby" or "Bobby Jr.," an attempt to diminish the candidate and paint him as a political lightweight barely capable of wiping his own nose, riding the coattails of his famous father, former Gov. Bob Casey.

For the record, Bob Casey Jr. does not go by "Bobby" or "Junior," not even among family and close friends. The nickname "Bobby" is the creation of the state GOP to belittle and denigrate.

The issue is not that Santorum's opponent has a name which can be shortened to sound like a little boy's.

The issue is that not only has Santorum has enabled the lying neoconservative regime which has gotten us into a costly quagmire in Iraq, but he has also made PA the butt of late-night comedian jokes with his bizarre utterances. So, now we have Casey, a sensible moderate, and this is the best they can do. Playground schoolboy bully stuff.

Shameful.

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