OH, FOR THOSE NON-PARTISAN GORE V. BUSH DAYS OF YORE:

Hopes Quickly Fade For a Postpartisan Era (GERALD F. SEIB, 10/14/08, Wall Street Journal)

Idealists once looked at this presidential campaign, between two candidates who fancy themselves as free of conventional party ties, and thought it might produce the election that finally pulls Washington out of the deep rut of partisan divisiveness it fell into in the 1990s.

Today, three weeks before Election Day, it sure doesn't look that way.

Instead, partisan animosity is growing rather than waning. Democrats charge, essentially, that the McCain campaign is engaging in character assassination against their candidate, Barack Obama. The Republican National Committee says it is spending $2 million to beef up security at campaign offices because of acts of vandalism and "violent intimidation tactics" by Obama supporters. Campaign rallies are turning ugly; charges of racism are starting to appear.

Pollster Peter Hart has found some startling new evidence of high tensions. In surveying voters over the weekend, Mr. Hart found that more than a third of each candidate's supporters say they have grown to "detest" either John McCain or Sen. Obama so deeply that they would have a hard time accepting the one they don't support as president.

So after eight years of telling us how George W. Bush has caused the partisan divide in America it gets worse with two candidates who are barely distinguishable?

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 14, 2008 3:09 PM