One thought I had during the Primaries was if Hillary Clinton was nominated as the Democratic contender for President, then we would see an incredible amount of smears and inuendo based on her political history. I thought that if Democrats nominated another candidate, then we would see less smears and innuendo.

Maybe we would have. Since we have only candidate from the Party, we have no way to compare one's vs. another's. Still, the volume is considerable.

I contended then, as I do now, that if we want to make the best choice possible for President and other elected offices, then we must learn to focus on Principles and Outcomes, not issues and personalities. Unfortunately, these smear emails (whose content also spills over into various chat rooms and discussion groups) are intended to focus on the confusion of issues and personalities.

I understand that for many people, trying to sort out between candidates must be like someone trying to understand advanced calculus without the aptitude, training or time to do so. In the midst of the confusion, making a decision based on some gut feel brought on by these smear emails that somehow a candidate is "not like you" is easy to make, but can lead you to making a bad decision.

Everything we do here is not so much intended to tell you who to vote for, but rather how to make an informed decision. Accordingly, I have a new web site I'm going to add as a favorite today. I'm also going to give you a link to one of their articles I recommend you forward to your friends.

Remember this. Why are you getting these emails? Because they work. When will you stop getting those emails? When the vast majority of us no longer respond to them.

Here are the links.

The web site. http://www.factcheck.org/about/

The article. http://www.factcheck.org/specialreports/that_chain_e-mail_your_friend_sent_to.html