Like many other people in the country, now that election time is drawing near, I’ve been watching hour after hour of political debates, and listening to the pundits on CNN tell me who was going to win, who was going to lose and then trying to rationalize their reasons for being wrong once it was over.

While the political circus has given me a few more insights into the views of each of the candidates, I usually find the mud-slinging and animosity to be the one thing that sticks with me the most. Instead of helping me decide who I want to vote for, the debacle usually leaves me with the impression that all of the candidates are popular high school girls, battling it out for prom queen, but instead of calling each other fat or easy, they are accusing each other of having too little experience, a soft stance on immigration, being racists, or, my personal favorite, bad fashion sense. (I guess that one works in both cases.)

That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised on Monday when one candidate called for an end to all the mud-slinging and squabbling. Senator Barack Obama spoke in a news conference and actually said moderately pleasant things about his competitors. I kept waiting and waiting for the other shoe to drop and the criticizing to begin, but much to my amazement, that has not yet been the case.