This time it was supposed to be different.

This was going to be a presidential campaign unlike any in our liftimes.

This was going to be about ideas and change and facts and respect.

Instead, it's been about misdirection and personalities and attacks.

In other words, it's been politics as usual. And the official nominating conventions haven't even taken place yet.

Most of the blame goes to John McCain, who said it wasn't going to be this way. Instead, he has torn a page out of the Karl Rove playbook and scatter-shot darts at Barack Obama, much like George W. Bush did to McCain eight years ago after taking Rove's Kool-Aid. Now Obama feels the need to fight back in kind, lest he be viewed as a punching bag.

Neither man benefits. Nor does the country.

Soon, the two presidential candidates will annoint their running mates. Historically, the VP nominees turn up the heat and the negative rhetoric. Wonderful.

And here we are, in one of those turning-point moments in our nation's history, finally about to rid ourselves of the worst president we've ever had, and hungry for a new voice and a new image for America.

Yet, on this date in late summer, optimism is fading.