Even with the DVR locked and loaded, it’s impossible to escape the election attack ads. We can’t afford this guy, do we want to trust this woman to lead us. Ugh. … As if the problems we face are about the character of individuals and not baked deep into the cake of our national institutions and infrastructure. Pessimism creeping…

The Pioneer Press’ Bill Salisbury examines this same old story with the another version of the same old story.

The point of the piece is that negative ads work. But they work to accomplish what? To drive voters from the polls? To stir up mutual revulsion, mistrust and even hatred–witness the Tea Party’s protester beat downs of the past week or so–so that nobody believes that government can accomplish anything. (Guess what, it can–and every once in a while, even today, it does.)