If the presidential primaries have you squirming and longing for statesmen and stateswomen of old, you’re not alone. In the wake of  Donald Trump and Mitt Romney’s tit-for-tat last week, more and more people are lamenting the loss of civility in this most unusual and unfortunate of election cycles.

In Trump, Republicans have a candidate willing to put down, embarass, belittle and mock his way to the Oval Office. Romney called him out as a phony and a fraud, urging Republicans to wake up before they nominate someone who divides, rather than unites. Trump, speaking in Portland, lashed back, saying Romney would have “dropped to his knees” for Trump’s endorsement in 2012 when Romney was the party’s nominee.

While people are focusing on Trump’s lack of decency, unfortunately, he’s not alone. Many candidates this year are an embarassment, in one form or another, to the office they seek, and political observers are saying the campaign is further dividing the electorate.

While many elections eventually “go negative,” 2016 seems to be ripening (or is it rotting) faster than any in a long time. It’s like we have third-graders running for office. But some third-graders, unlike many of their adult counterparts, are seeing through the idiot wind, as Bob Dylan might describe it. After Trump attacked Romney in Portland, a local news channel interviewed students at a Portland school about what they thought of the name-calling and the kids articulately assessed the politicians for not being “presidential.”

Like these local children, we’re sick of the ugly politicking. We also worry about the level of discourse and how it could trickle down, coarsening the way people treat each other. We are already innudated with negative role models on TV, but now the political “elite” seem to be on the same descending spiral.

While Congress has long been known to throw a little mud, the office of president serves as the ultimate role model for our culture. Whoever occupies it, or seeks it, is expected to live by a higher set of rules. Even those who do not admire Barack Obama or George W. Bush’s policies would likely agree both have been “presidential” in how they have carried themselves while representing the American people.

When it comes to the onset of ugly political speak, Mainers have a good example in the Blaine House. Trump is a national version of Gov. Paul LePage, although LePage has several redeeming characteristics, such as pulling himself up from poverty and seeing himself as a spokesman for the average, hard-working Mainer. While these traits provide some cover for LePage’s outbursts, we can’t forgive him because LePage says and does things without caring how his example affects the wider populace. There have been so many stunning statements, from the Vaseline reference to little bearded women, that Mainers have gotten used to it, even joking when the guv will strike again. LePage is relegated to a tiny corner of the country, but Trump is on a national stage.

The idea that all Trump supporters condone this kind of rhetoric may not be accurate. We think his supporters – a segment of the GOP that seems to be waning after Saturday’s primaries, where Ted Cruz picked up more delegates – are so sick of political correctness that they are willing to overlook their man’s crassness. They are fooling themsevles, of course, as Romney and others having been saying.

If nothing else, the president should have the utmost character. Think Abraham Lincoln or George Washington or one of the Roosevelts or Ronald Reagan. Policies matter, but so does character. Actions surely matter, but so do words.

So, we urge the candidates – and voters – to remember that character counts. Remember that we are the example of democracy in the world, and if we want to inspire other countries to be like us, and therefore promote peace in the world, then we need to employ political discourse that rises above.

-John Balentine, managing editor

@john_balentine