When I first agreed to start blogging for Brainstorm, I assumed that I’d be able to use this venue as a perch from which to talk about everything from contemporary network telaevision shows to my idiosyncratic pet peeves about the daily grind of academic life.

Of course, I underestimated how compelling and overdetermined this presidential race would become. Can I really justify talking about my weird obsession with HBO’s newest vampire romp or the latest Spike Lee epic when the political stakes seem so high (and demand such diligent attention) this election season?

Just this week, even as I’ve been trying my best to keep up with the newest season of my favorite televisual offerings, I have been glued to the pundits’ continued dissections of the two campaigns’ respectice electoral moves. And I can’t help but feel frustrated by how dirty the bathwater has become that we’ve been using to bathe America’s political baby. Some things that should be flushed down the drain:

1. As far as I’m concerned, “Troopergate” is a relative non-issue. There are so many bigger issues surrounding Palin’s vice presidential candidacy — and other more substantial questions about these candidates that demand our attention.

2. I was so glad that McCain looked to be reversing course late this week with respect to his campaign’s recent ratcheting up of its demonizations of Obama. The campaign has been making a concerted effort to seemingly challenge its opponent’s very Americanness. I can’t help but be concerned that that strategy is fomenting a kind of irrational rage against Obama that could go from ugly to violently dangerous quite quickly. There is already this commonsensical assumption that the first black president is disproportionately at risk with respect to potential assassination attempts. Wasn’t that supposed to be one of the reasons why Colin Powell’s wife never wanted him to run? Why feed that racist beast with histrionic rhetoric?

3. And I know that I should probably leave Cindy McCain alone, but earlier this week, she publicly described Obama’s campaign as “the dirtiest campaign in American history.” I was flabbergasted. Wow! What does that even mean? Dirtier than the Willie Horton and Swiftboat strategies? Dirtier than what was done to McCain himself in 2000, those rumors of his “illegitimate black baby”? What is Cindy McCain referencing? And does she not see how offensive it seems for her to characterize the first African-American presidential campaign from a major political party as the dirtiest in all of American history, especially since no pundits (on the left or right) have been making any such over-the-top claims? Isn’t this the epitome of hypocrisy, given how the McCain campaign has been going after Obama in euphemized cultural terms? Or am I just being unfair?

Anyway, I can’t wait for November. Maybe then I’ll actually find some time to write about Jack Bauer’s newest counter-terrorist exploits. I plan to be watching. I need the distraction.