We love America, but we despise election season — and what it does to people.

Last week, attack ads began surfacing all over, from supervisor candidates to state senatorial candidates and even governor candidates.

In the latest, funded by the Mississippi Republican Party, Natchez native and incumbent state senator Robert “Bob M.” Dearing is square in the crosshairs.

One of the mail-out pieces features Dearing and the headline “He’s not one of us” along with all sorts of negative jabs at the man.

Good grief. Is it really so important that the right person or party win an elected office that we’re all willing to tear one another down, all in the sake of “winning?”

At the end of the day, such negative campaigners have to wonder, did I win because of what I offer, or because my dirt and mud stuck the best?

State politics are worse.

Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood’s campaign is reveling after a video showing his opponent helping a friend get released from jail after a misdemeanor charge was leaked. The opponent, Steve Simpson, suggests Hood’s campaign leaked it.

Even some candidates for governor are quick sling mud.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Phil Bryant told a group of supporters that voting for his opponent is like voting for President Obama.

What a sad cheap shot. If Bryant cannot find a better reason Mississippians should vote for him other than by painting his opponent Johnny DuPree with the Obama brush, then perhaps Bryant should not be Mississippi’s next leader.

If enough voters simply say “no” to the mud and stop voting for these folks, campaigns will be forced to clean up their acts.