Now that the media has narrowed its coverage of the presidential election down to two main parties, the time has arrived for interested Americans to choose the candidate they love the most (or hate the least).

In this year’s election, many voters will rely on the news media, presidential debates and party platforms as sources of information on the candidates.

Unfortunately, attack ads will be used to mislead and influence public opinion using more propoganda than fact.

The problem with attack ads is that they will only reinforce the opinions of most voters, rather than shift their vote to the canidate the ads support.

This is because many Americans are chained to an ideology pre-fabricated for them by the Republicans or the Democrats, which is reinforced by conservative talk radio or the New York Times.

The best way for someone to get to know the real George W. Bush or John Kerry would be to look at their voting and legislative history, as well as their campaign donors. One could look at past promises and see whether they were kept to see how honest the current rhetoric is. Because most Americans are busy working and raising families, they have to rely on the information about the candidates’ past.

The problem is that because this year’s election is on the path of becoming the closest in America’s history, many news organizations are poised to gain ratings off of the epic battle between the right and left.

To gain ratings, once respected reporters have fortfified their news reporting with vicious personal attacks and unsubstantiated allegations.

The most recent example is Dan Rather, who ran a story on “60 Minutes” accusing President Bush of lying about and failing to fulfill his National Guard duty. Rather and his employer, CBS, have now found themselves having to discredit their reporting.

Perhaps the “play with fire and you’ll get burned,” lesson Rather is learning applies to both Bush and Kerry. Kerry seemed pretty content while left wing fringe groups like MoveOn.org bashed Bush with claims and ads that accused him of deserting the National Guard and escaping service in Vietnam. He sure wasn’t laughing when GOP interests counter-attacked with their “Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” advertisements.

Whatever America’s obsession over the Vietnam War may be, the interest in what Bush and Kerry did more than 30 years ago has not subsided since they premiered around convention time.

The right wing would have you believe that Kerry is a facially reconstructed, flip-flopping, war record fabricating and finger-to-the-wind Boston elite whose policies are directly influenced by his mouthy, ketchup-chucking wife.

The left wing tries to get people to think that Bush is an old-thirsty, war mongering and profiteering, grammar mangling, civil liberty strangling daddy’s boy who can’t even spell his own name without vice president Dick Cheney’s help. The good news for both candidates is that victory depends on swing voters who are unable to make up their minds. The bad news for both candidates is that they spend too much time trying to benefit from throwing personal attacks at their opponent and they now can’t put the media’s focus on the important issues.

With millions of dollars being spent to buy votes in key electoral states, it seems silly to put out campaign ads that only preach to the choir and instead of gaining party members, many attack ads seem to turn undecided voters off.

The leaders of our country should focus on strengthening America’s national security, confronting the illegal immigration epidemic and the health care dilemma.

Deciding how both candidates would handle our health care, poverty education and narcotic problems is far more important than whether Kerry deserved his third Purple Heart or not. Perpetrators on either side of the political spectrum who fuel the fire of this vicious mud fight are hurting America by focusing on its past, rather than its future.