The competitive spirit is alive and kicking and wriggling in the American society. It does not import if it is a question of a sports event or of a political campaign, it seems that he wakes up the best thing and the worst of the persons. During the presidential election of this year we have seen both attitudes in his maximum expression.

There is nothing like the feeling of being excellent. An election has the whole potential of doing that the people feel like that it can do a difference, like that can be a part of a team who shares his ideals and that they can be employed together at something that will produce fruits. And of course they all want to be in the winning side; that's why they do any thing to reach his target.

This idea provoked the enthusiasm for the presidential campaign in million persons this year. It stimulated many people that had been apathetic towards the politics to be informed more actively. We saw a number without volunteers' precedents that were employed at the campaigns and an unheard-of quantity of registered voters. The hearing increased for the conventions and the debates.

In this election many persons took the time to focus in the topics that affect his everyday life and debated them hotly.

This year more that they never listened to voices with opinions variety. It has been the most analyzed and investigated election of the history. This is a clear sign of a healthy democracy. Until his ugly side went out for him.

The political debate is a natural part of the electoral process in this one and in most of the civilized countries of the world. But, somehow, the debate this year had a particularly negative tone. It is necessary only to do little memory to remember the dirty campaigns that have existed in the past. The managers of the campaigns know that the negative announcements work and they can extract theirs profit. The same candidates take advantage of every forum that debates have, of interviews, speeches, not only to sell his proposals but also to attack his adversaries.

The public expressions of the negative attitude in the political campaigns are, unfortunately, a common part of the process. We saw it this year in some acts of campaign, where sympathizers of a candidate were insulting his adversary. Then there were the most extreme cases in which two conspiracies were described at least to murder Barack Obama.

But what he alarms is the more and more hostile debate between the voters, between friends and even between members of the same family. One has seen throughout, in the work, in holidays, in schools, in Internet, in blogs and even in Facebook.

I do not lie, have seen persons erasing "friends" in Facebook because of his political position. A person that I meet moved back from the list of followers of Daddy Yankee later that this one was giving his support to John McCain. A supporter of McCain has in his profile an Obama caricature with Karl Marx as his formula partner and some of the comments about the democratic candidate in his FunWall turn out to be unrepeatable.

A dinner between friends one week before the election turned into a tiff between followers of McCain and of Obama. It is supposed that we were there to celebrate, to eat and to take, but we end up by discussing if Sarah Palin would take from the woman the right to choose. Nothing better to embitter a good martini.

It is natural to have opinion differences, but some of these political debates between the common and current people mean not only exhibiting the political points of view that might have stayed secret, but also the liberalization of the dark side of some individuals: the anger, the hate, the fear of the unknown, enclosed thing the racism. A thing is to disagree with the points of view of someone, and other one is to insult it for it.

We finish the cycle of this election with a country bitterly divided. Between many challenges that the new president will face it is of recovering the public-spiritedness and the respect in our society.

(c) 2008 by Maria Helen Salinas.