I have some tough choices to make when I visit the polls this November. Do I want the candidate who wants to throw elderly citizens out of their nursing home or the one who wants to work side by side with our seniors, giving them the best healthcare? Do I want the candidate who wants to steal from our schoolchildren and take away their lunches or the one who will work to raise teacher’s salaries and personally cook in our schools’ cafeterias? Do I want the candidate who hates puppies or the one who will work to put a joyful puppy in the hand of every child on Christmas morning?

The problem with the choices above is that all of the mutual accusations make it hard to tell which candidate is the second coming of Christ and which one is a spawn of Satan. In most races, each candidate tries to be the former while accusing an opponent of being the latter.

My message is simple: Negative campaigning has been out of hand for a long time. It is saddening to watch the local six o’clock news this time of year. Hearing the news is not worth the incessant negative campaign commercials laced throughout the broadcast. Many of these commercials sport a foreboding voice, set against a backdrop of ominous music, telling us what an opponent did to make sure your family is unsafe at night. The soundtrack is enhanced by augmented, unflattering images of the evil opponent who actually voted for something as egregious as stopping new jobs from coming to the New River Valley or giving free homes to illegal immigrants.

Enduring these commercials brings many questions to my mind. What kind of politician would explicitly want to cut jobs in the area? Most candidates claim their opponents would. Legislation is a complicated process and I doubt there are many bills so evil that they are explicitly titled the “Stop Bringing Jobs to the New River Valley Act” or “Let’s Pay Teachers Less and Steal from our Children Amendment.” It’s just not that simple. Yet, candidates want to make you believe that is what their opponents actually voted, or will vote, into law.

What candidate is not “for the people of the New River Valley,” does not want “to see our schools better funded,” or does not want “to work to end poverty and crime?” A quick viewing of any of these ads and you would believe there is only one person who is for these things while his or her opponent is steadfastly against them.

Where are these doctors who are telling cancer patients to give up? This is a much bigger concern to me than who will be serving in our state legislature next term. These doctors need to be brought to the public and have their medical licenses taken away.

A major question I have is how do I explain these negative, often vicious, political wars to the middle school students in my classes? Like most teachers, I encourage students to build themselves up using their own merit and character as opposed to tearing someone else down. Sadly, they cannot look to our political leaders for an example. I would love to hear any of the candidates educate a group of middle school students about the perceived need to campaign so bitterly.

Finally, will the negative campaigning ever stop? This question that many of us ask has probably reached the rhetorical stage, but it merits an answer. The answer is probably “no” despite the fact that it does not always work. Let’s look back to our last gubernatorial election. Jerry Kilgore’s ads were awful. They consisted of caricatures of Tim Kaine that Kilgore should have been embarrassed to be connected with, testimony of families who were mourning the loss of relatives to murders and other low-brow nonsense. While there is no statistical evidence, I am convinced it was this type of negative campaigning that lost the election for Kilgore. The public had had enough. (To indulge in an unrelated observation, Kilgore’s unhealthy obsession with the death penalty did not help his election efforts much either).

It is no wonder that new campaign laws require an actual auditory statement from the candidate claiming to endorse their ads. With the lows these ads have sunk to, it would be hard to believe anyone would take responsibility or ownership of them unless it came straight from the horse’s mouth.

Rick Robers grew up in Roanoke, Va. He now teaches middle school English in the New River Valley.