The high points of both presidential campaigns came during the party conventions. Both Obama and McCain accomplished their main goals during their conventions. Obama reviewed enthusiastic endorsements and supportive speeches from the Clintons and was able to shore up his support among the Democratic base (Clinton supporters in particular) who were badly divided after a contentious primary. Similarly, McCain was able to assure the Republican base that the conservative agenda would not be forgotten in his presidency.

The more conservative elements of the party had been hesitant to embrace McCain due to his prior stances on immigration reform and campaign finance laws.

Another high point for McCain came during an unscripted moment at a recent rally. An older woman stood up to ask a question with a microphone. During her comments she condemned Obama for being an “Arab’ and a ‘Muslim.” McCain promptly shut her down and defended Obama for being a good person, but one whom he disagreed with on ideological grounds.

Another high point for McCain was his decision to not make Obama's former pastor a central focus of his campaign.

Although he may have scored some political points (as Hillary Clinton clearly did), he was not willing to divide the country with the hateful and racists diatribes of Jeremiah Wright. It was McCain’s way of putting his “country first”.

As for low points, both campaigns should be scolded for their negative and misleading ads. Period. I personally subscribe to the belief that a candidate’s job is to share their vision for the future, not to tear down their opponent. Here is one example: Obama ran a misleading immigration piece against McCain in New Mexico. Despite the fact that McCain has clearly been a champion for comprehensive immigration reform, which included a path to citizenship, Obama’s ad painted him as an immigration hardliner that was only concerned with building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. On the other hand, I was particularly unimpressed with McCain’s commercial about Obama’s celebrity that showed both Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Both camps took their opponents’ words out of context to try to score some points. McCain wasted almost a week on Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment. But Obama’s frequent references to McCain wanting to leave our troops in Iraq for 100 years were equally disingenuous.

The true low point of the campaign was media bias. On one hand, Fox News is clearly in the tank for the Republicans, although they at least go through the motions of trying to present both sides.

CNN, MSNBC, and all of the other networks jumped on the Obama bandwagon and rode it through November. (MSNBC was by far the worst.) McCain’s treatment by the hosts of “The View” was particularly appalling.

We all know that the media leans left, but at least they used to “pretend” they were neutral. This year, they stopped pretending. And it was simply disgusting to watch.