Stop the noise! Address issues

Our voice in Columbus, Nebraska, stands little chance of being heard above the din of this battle, but we call for a stop to the negativity ... the charges ... the counter charges.

This presidential election campaign has taken a lamentable turn into raging rhetoric and fear mongering.

The Associated Press reported Friday that John McCain’s advisers believe the 72-year-old four-term Arizona senator’s best chance to win rests with stoking voter unease about Barack Obama, the 47-year-old first-term Illinois senator who would be the country’s first black president.

Fear factor selling points include Obama’s age, experience, Chicago roots, glancing relationship with a former Weather Underground member now college professor and a “foreign” middle name.

People at McCain rallies shout out “traitor” ... “treason” and worse when the associations are made. Obama has decried the tactics while some efforts have been made from his camp to remind people of McCain’s relationship with Charles H Keating who was sent to prison for his role in a savings and loan crisis in the 1980s.

The contrasts between the two candidates are stark.

McCain was the son and grandson of Navy admirals whose path to a Navy career through the Naval Academy was smoothed by his legacy.

Obama was the son of an African man who came to the U.S. and a Kansas woman. His path to an Ivy League education, a credential held by our last three presidents, came through his academics and affirmative action.

The best known part of McCain’s background is the years he spent as a prisoner in North Vietnam after his plane was shot down. A fate that he has said he probably could have avoided had he heeded the warning that a surface to air missile had locked on to his plane. Regardless, those years appear to have shaped his political and world view: “I have survived. I will survive.” A self-described maverick, McCain has been in Congress 26 years, four as a representative and 22 as a senator.

Obama, a Columbia University and Harvard Law School grad who was president of the Harvard Law Review, worked in numerous community service positions before entering politics. Illinois’ political history is storied from Abraham Lincoln to Adlai Stevenson to Richard Daley and now, Obama. He got his start as a state legislator, a common first step for an Illinois political career, and served eight years in the Illinois Senate. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

McCain and Obama now are locked in a war of words and images that will end with one of them in the Oval Office as commander and chief of the most powerful nation in the world.

Sadly, this plays out against a U.S. financial meltdown that even the most talented spinmeisters have trouble describing.

America needs to hear the candidates’ views of what is to be done with the economy. Our future is of much greater importance than the pasts of these two men.

CBS’ Bob Schieffer will moderate the third and final debate of this election Wednesday night. The eight-segment format is designed to elicit a more cerebral and less caustic discourse.

We urge each of you to listen and watch carefully and to sort the facts from the fervor. This 90 minutes and the vote you cast on Nov. 4 are critical.

Lastly, we would remind you that you have until Oct. 24 to register to vote. Don’t neglect this privilege.