It’s election season again, and you know what that means. Yeah, it means negative campaigning.

It’s all too common that with election season comes negative campaigning.

Whether it’s on the national, state or local level, ‘mudslinging’ and name calling are so common in politics these days to the point that we’d be surprised if campaign season were a more peaceful affair.

Don’t get me wrong, campaigns that focus on each candidates handling of the issues at hand are exactly what democratic societies need. We elect politicians for their abilities to handle the problems that we face on a day-to-day basis.

No, what I’m talking about is the negative campaigning that hits at an individual’s personal life and focuses on tearing down a person and even at times targets a candidate’s family.

Should a candidate’s character matter? Yes, to an extent.

A candidates character should only matter as it relates to said candidate’s ability to perform in the office that he or she is running for. For example, if a candidate has a history of missing deadlines and failing to meet criteria that relate to his or her job, then that’s something that needs to be taken into account when it comes to an election and campaign season.

But the daily lives of a candidate’s family or, quite frankly, things like a candidate’s religion should have no parts in a campaign.

Speaking of family, spouses and children should be off limits during campaign and election season.

There are special exceptions in the rarest cases when it comes to spouses (if the spouse actually will work on the candidate’s staff and will have a direct impact on government and issues or something of that nature), but nine times out of ten they should remain out of play.

The reason I say all of this is because not only does the mudslinging and name calling distract from the issues, it just turns off and alienates the voters.

Really, the only people who love to see the meaningless squabbling and name calling are the hardcore supporters on both sides of the political spectrum.

All of it just turns your average voter off from the entire process and leaves them disenchanted with politics in general and at large.

So to candidates, supporters and whoever else is involved this election season, let’s please put aside all of the petty bickering and character assassinations and just run some clean campaigns.

I’m sure that we’ll all find the process is smoother, more informative, and more satisfying once we put to bed all the nonsense that inhabits politics these days.