We have a choice.

Although the traditional media and two of the three candidates seem perfectly content to play out this campaign for the presidency as just another Washington political game -- taking sound bytes out of context, promoting false controversy, using wedge issues to divide us and feigning outrage over non-issues -- that still leaves us with a choice.

Old politics plays on the emotions of people who are embittered, frankly, by old politicians. They use the same tactics to frighten and manipulate voters, and in the end, we end up with little more than we had. That's no way to change Washington.

Gas tax holidays sound great to people who are feeling pain at the pump, until you realize that gas taxes fund the repair of our crumbling infrastructure and create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and a gas tax holiday would do practically nothing to help consumers. But both McCain and Clinton are betting we'll hear the words 'gas' and 'tax' and respond in Pavlovian fashion to a solution that would save each of us a grand total of $25 and cause thousands of Americans lose their jobs. But hey, it's a holiday, and everyone loves a holiday. Let's all put on our made-in China flag pins and celebrate.

Tough talk about 'obliterating' and 'bomb, bomb, bombing' other countries may make a candidate look strong on the surface, until you consider the consequences of the rhetoric, and what might be better achieved at significantly less cost with effective diplomacy. A future president might suggest answering the phone at 3 am and say 'nuke 'em', but that could prove imprudent given our already fragile relationship with the Middle East. It's time for a different approach.

Guilt by association is a popular political ploy, but if Obama = Wright, then does McCain = Hagee? Where's the outrage over McCain's Catholic-hating friend, whose endorsement McCain is "very honored" to have? Both preachers' remarks are equally offensive to different groups of people, but the fact is that neither is running for office. Rev. Wright is correct about a lot of things, and wrong about a good many as well. But it doesn't matter. Jeremiah Wright is not Barack Obama, Wright's ideas are not Obama's ideas and their approaches are vastly different. And people who are willing to tie the two inextricably might want to consider what that means in their own relationships. Wright-gate is a totally media created controversy -- swift-boat style politics foisted on the American people as though we learned nothing from '04. It's completely Rovian to take a candidates strongest attribute (unity), find the most tenuous of connections (divisive former preacher), add a cable news feeding frenzy and let the media conglomerates pastorbate 24-7 to their ratings reports.

America needs jobs, and the people of Indiana might fall for Clinton's empty promise of "jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs" until they discover that her past suggests she might just have a spelling lapse and ship their jobs to India instead. Or China. Or maybe Mexico.

There are dozens upon dozens of attacks that might be leveled against both John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Many more than the ones they have and will have against Obama. But negative campaigning is old politics. Let's rise above it.

If we're serious about change, if we've had enough of old Washington politics and political games and media manipulation, if we're tired of CNN and Fox picking our president for us, there's an alternative. It's time to rise above the negative politics of the past.

Teresa and Michelle spoke at Carnegie Mellon University recently about the one candidate who has not succumbed to 'politics as usual', but instead wants all of us together to rise above it. Senator Kerry has said Barack Obama will be a 'transformational' president. His campaign is a portent of that change, and this election is exactly when we need it to happen. It is about the "fierce urgency of now", and we need to grasp it while we can. We missed our opportunity last time and ended up with eight years of hell. We may not get another chance.