In fact, our local pols could give pointers on smashmouthing to the political major leaguers. Despite occasional mudslinging, politics used to be more civil. The practice of digging into a candidate's background and exposing a titillating indiscretion just before the election was viewed as a dirty trick. However, looking back on it, dirty or not, at least most of those types of politically motivated revelations proved to have some basis of truth. Smashmouth is different.
Truth appears irrelevant.
The odds are in favor of the smashmouther that voters will remember the often exaggerated and captivating claims while either missing or ignoring any possible retraction. There are two recent examples exposing the ludicrousness of smashmouthing. At a City Council meeting not long ago, Temecula schools Trustee Ed Elder addressed the council, implying developers are unduly influencing all aspects of local government, including the school board. When confronted by the two trustees at a March 6 school board meeting for what Morris and Tooker called a misrepresentation, Elder apologized, but despite the damage done made no offer or effort to make a public retraction of his statement. In a recent letter to the editor, a voter displayed confusion that might have been caused by the rampant smashmouthing already going on in a council campaign still months away.