Editorial: Candidates should educate voters, not denigrate each other

Is it the high profile of some political races that causes candidates to fill the airwaves with advertisements that ooze with toxic waste?

Is it the big money behind those candidacies that forces candidates to go negative?

Or is it the perceived need to shock voters into consciousness in a state that has problems in getting people to the polls?

Who knows. Probably a combination of those and other factors.

But the higher up the food chain you go, the less issue driven and more icky the campaigns become.

We hasten to note that many candidates with the wherewithal to buy TV or radio time have behaved themselves for the most part.

But we've seen things go sour most acutely in the race for governor and U.S. Senate, which have far outpaced other high-profile races in prime-time ads.

We asked both Bruce Rauner and Pat Quinn in our editorial board interviews why their ads were overridingly negative. Their responses were an amalgam of no they're not/the other guy did it first and everyone has a right to defend himself.

Baloney.

We haven't kept track of which camp was the first to blink in this game of electoral chicken, but you can rest assured that the other already had ads in the can with plans to air them.

With the three governor's bouts in which the candidates shake the hands and then come out swinging now over and the debate calendar for the rest of the candidates drying up after this week, there is a real opportunity.

An opportunity to educate rather than degrade.

In this final 11 days before the election, it is our fervent wish that those who've been populating our airwaves with grainy, grimaced photos of their opponents accompanied by stretched truths, specious insinuations and outright falsities simply stop.

And instead provide us with some useful information about themselves and what they stand for.

Use that airtime to tell us what you're about. Educate us about your positions on various issues facing the state, the country, your county, whatever level of government you're pursuing.

While we suspect the vitriol to only increase, wouldn't it be novel to treat us voters as people with brains for a change?

What a refreshing close to the election season it would be if you actually inspired us to vote for you rather than make us choose which candidate we detested the least.