It would be nice: if rules were followed… if fair play was a guiding principle rather than something to smirk at… if those seeking high office did so with seriousness and gravitas instead of throw away lines and inside jokes they think they can get away with… if a situation arose where the appearance of taint might be easily seen so that candidates’ voluntarily placed themselves above any temptation or reproach…

Sadly in this campaign (as well as the three or four before it), anything goes. Attacks from “so-called authors” writing smear books reaching number one on the best-seller list through bulk sales only and where 85 factual errors are found on the first 36-pages” and… it seems this clown also attacked McCain just get the headlines. It all needs to stop.

We are spinning out of control. The trivial has become real in a celebrity obsessed world. Tyre gauges and faux adverts showing Obama as Moses are the message of the day with the most traction vs. what either candidate plans for the future on energy, the economy and we in the media are to blame.

It was no surprise to learn the so-called “cone of silence” McCain was sealed in, did not exist before both Presidential candidates visited with Pastor Warren in Orange County, California, that he was indeed in a motorcade on the way to the church for the 1st half hour and in a green room near the stage until his appearance and hug with Barack Obama.

Everyone in Camp McCain wants us to believe he did not get any of the questions in advance, when by all accounts his answers were focused, pointed and aggressive showing the depth of someone who had received at the very least a hint of the topic areas if not the actual questions.

Yesterday the campaign attacked Andrea Mitchell, someone I’ve never been a fan of yet never questioned her integrity and ‘straight down the middle’ reporting. Indeed since she did this whilst being married to federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan without many figuring this out, is to her credit. The campaign whined and painted her and NBC with the ‘biased liberal media’ brush for saying two factually correct statements later corroborated. One can only look and see that this means things are not going well for McCain.

Camp McCain has learned nothing from the string of Democratic pretenders, chief of which was Hillary Clinton, or saw how her attacks never stuck. Attacking Obama as a modern day un-American bogeyman is the flavour du jour. Each day the In-box is filled with hate vile e-mails spouting fear and bile at every turn. And my colleagues in the press buy into all of the SPIN and behave like children in a sandbox jumping up and saying look at me, no… look at me, NO… look at me!!!

And if teacher doesn’t look, the story gets bigger and bigger to make sure the teacher does look. With 77-days left it can only get sillier. Each wants to control the teacher’s attention and that is not possible, teacher, like American public, has a migraine and is not taking calls.

Now the silliness of the campaign is such that whether or not McCain benefited, this is the chance to attack the media and anyone else who dares question the power and authority of the great and powerful OZ. As McCain and his surrogates huff and puff behind the curtain and great noise and smoke billows outward from the big machine against ‘demon NBC’ in a not-so-veiled attempt to paint the “liberal” media as against McCain, the country is continually denied a real debate on issues.

At an audience of his base McCain conveniently forgot the facts surrounding his declaration of victory at the same time as President Bush, his crowd pleasing statements about hunting down bin Laden compared with his actions of NOT hunting him down in Afghanistan and Pakistan or even showing up for votes in the last two years, his anti-abortion stance and Keith Olbermann’s brilliant and fact-based special comment where he routinely hangs a candidate on his own words, talked about how juvenile the McCain attacks have become and urged the Senator to grow up!

Sitting in my hotel room and watching on the Internet, the only thing missing was McCain’s campaign manager saying, “I am rubber you are glue.” But then that would truly show this as a sandbox fight.

Now here come the Swift Boat 527 groups to do what they do best in a sand box…

Anyone got a big scoop?