We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Stop whining about negative political messaging and pining for those mythical days when our political landscape was marked by civility and reasoned discourse.
For those who seem to suffer from historical amnesia, consider poor Thomas Jefferson during the election of 1800. Such a smear campaign was waged against him that New Englanders reportedly hid their Bibles for fear that the infidel president would declare them illegal. The Connecticut Courant wrote that if Jefferson were elected, "Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil ...