Since when did we belittle citizens to win an election?

This latest round of political propaganda from the Obama and McCain people is the “Joe” discussions. I realize that as far back as the beginning of our country nasty rhetoric against each candidate has been prevalent in our political scenery. Bush-Kerry, Jefferson-Adams, and Lincoln-McClellan to name just a few were ugly name calling campaigns that attempted to destroy the character of the candidate for a few more votes. But my question is when did we allow our political system to attack a citizen for asking a policy question to attempt to understand a candidate’s position. I frankly don’t care which side it came from, we have gotten to a point in our society that we are so power hungry to get into office that we will not stop until some of our citizens are laid across the train tracks. I don’t like either side of the media, the Sean Hannity’s and Keith Olberman’s should not be able to be on national TV spewing their anger. Ed Morrisey writes in his article Obama’s goon squad attempts to destroy Joe the plumber
(http://urbangrounds.com/2008/10/17/obama-vs-joe-the-plumber/) that Obama’s people and the media are trying to destroy Joe’s credibility just from a question the man asked Obama. We as citizens have become numb to this type of TV so much whereas we don’t see this as abnormal, nor do we have the ability to do anything about the situation simply because the whole system now is about the corporate dollar. If we chose the specifically address the sponsors of these networks then something may happen, but to notify the news organizations would yield nothing. I bet if we had some qualified candidates we would see a relevant campaign. As for Morrisey, he defends his argument in the standard conservative way trying to criminalize Obama’s “goon squad” and their efforts in destroying an average citizen. It is sad that our Presidential contest, with two unqualified senators (are these the best two candidates we can really come up with?), have come to a point where the rhetoric will undoubtedly result in a country worse off in four years. Morrisey does his part in continuing the task of ensuring the American citizen blocks out all information and hopes for the best.