Geez, it's like the 2008 Presidential campaign re-visited. If you don't have a better idea, I suppose they think it's more effective to simply "engage and enrage" the public with emotional rhetoric. What's amazing is that the public is dumb enough to permit it to work.

Do you think that maybe both sides use Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals? Does this conduct from the town meetings that have been covered by the media sound familiar?

• RULE 3: Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
• RULE 5: Ridicule is the most potent weapon. There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works. Create anger and fear.

And the public is dumb enough to buy it. Shame on us.