In recognition that the blog post below is a bit on the “heavy” side, and because it’s Friday, we thought our readers might appeciate something a little lighter (although still campaign related) courtesy of The Daily Show.

The last two celebrity guests on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” both discussed campaign related issues.  Yesterday it was David Mark , former editor-in-chief of Campaigns & Elections Magazine and the author of Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning.  During the interview he offers some amusing examples of negative campaigning stretching back to the 19th century–John Adams was apparently accused of pimping for the czar of Russia–that explode the popular misconception that negative campaigning is a modern phenomenon.

The day before it was Lou Dobbs, who believes that people are “outraged” at the state of politics, but that outrage is insufficient to spur change because of the sinister attempts by “corporate America” and “special interests” to influence elections and legislation.  If Mr. Dobbs is really interested in spurring change, we hope he’ll move past this tired rhetoric and consider advocating, as we at CCP do, for the elimination of campaign finance policies that insulate incumbents from electoral challenge.

Video of both interviews can be found here.