There's one word that accurately describes the election campaigns being conducted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and his GOP/Tea Party opponent, Sharron Angle: Pathetic. Their campaigns remind me of a popular Shakespearean play, "Much Ado About Nothing."
The latest illustration of that play title is the overhyped "scandal" revealing that Angle criticized the Republican Party. Ho hum, so what else is new? "Angle Tape Slams GOP," screamed one headline; however, the story merely reported that Angle believes that her party has abandoned its standards and its principles. Well, that's nothing more than standard Tea Party rhetoric, a small but significant factor in this year's mid-term elections. All Tea Party candidates are running against the Republican and Washington establishments, which is how Angle won the GOP primary against two moderate candidates, and how she hopes to beat Reid next month.
To use another Shakespeare analogy, the press coverage of this alleged scandal amounts to a lot of "sound and fury signifying nothing." Apparently, Angle urged Tea Party of Nevada candidate Scott Ashjian to drop out of the race although no one has ever heard of him or his party. I suspect that they may be creations of Reid's Washington-based political consultants.
Meanwhile, we're subjected to a boring barrage of TV ads in which Reid accuses "extremist" Angle of wanting to privatize Medicare and Social Security while she charges that he's solely responsible for Nevada's highest-in-the-nation unemployment and mortgage foreclosure rates. The real world is much more complicated than those campaign caricatures but that doesn't stop the candidates from bombarding us with political garbage.
The aforementioned consultants share the blame for the pathetic election campaigns that we're enduring. People who can't pronounce the name of our state set the tone for the campaigns. They keep Reid and Angle away from the press and conduct phony dinner hour polls. I either hang up on the callers or lie to them by telling them that I'm voting for good old "none of the above," who's always a viable candidate in Nevada elections.
I believe that Nevada voters deserve better from our U.S. Senate candidates but realize that this is how campaigns are conducted in an era of 24-hour news cycles and the Internet. I saw and heard the same thing from Washington state's Senate candidates, three-term Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Dino Rossi during a recent family visit to Seattle.
On and on it goes throughout the nation as we get the public officials we deserve. Negative campaigning is contagious and it will surely continue until voters send a clear message to candidates who hit below the belt.
• Guy W. Farmer, a retired diplomat, resides in Carson City.