Thanks to Sen. John McCain, the presidential campaign has sunk to a new low during the past week. This is unfortunate as there are many real problems facing our nation that should be the focus of this campaign.

During the past 10 days Factcheck.org — a Web site operated by the nonpartisan Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania — has issued six rebukes of the McCain campaign:

• “A McCain-Palin TV ad accuses Obama of being ‘disrespectful’ of Palin, but it distorts quotes to make the case.” (Sept. 11)

• “McCain-Palin Distorts Our Finding” (Sept. 10)

• “A McCain campaign ad claims Obama’s ‘one accomplishment’ was a bill to teach sex ed to kindergarten kids. Don’t believe it.” (Sept. 10)

• “He (McCain) made some flubs in accepting nomination.” (Sept. 5)

• “Palin trips up on her facts.” (Sept. 4)

• “A McCain ad comparing Palin to Obama isn’t all above board.” (Sept. 4)

During the same time period Factcheck.org issued only one criticism of the Sen. Barack Obama campaign.

And then the quality of the debate devolved even further with the “lipstick on a pig” debate. Ever since his convention speech McCain has been arguing that he is the candidate of change in this election, despite the fact that many of his policies would continue the Bush legacy. Obama rightly responded that simply calling something “change” does not make it change. While speaking at a rally Obama stated, “you can put lipstick on a pig but it is still a pig.”

Incredibly, the McCain-Palin campaign charged Obama with making a sexist comment. Now, in my 33 years of living in Oklahoma I have heard the “lipstick on a pig” phrase hundreds of times, and never once was it intended to disparage a woman. There is no way a reasonable person could be outraged at this comment, but then reason seems to be taking a back seat in the McCain campaign.

But it does not have to be this way. In fact, at this time in history, with the unique crises we face, we deserve to have a different type of campaign. After all, the issues this year are as important as the differences in the candidates are vast.

For example, we are fighting a war in Iraq, that so far has resulted in 4,155 American military deaths and another 30,324 wounded, despite the admission that Iraq was not an imminent threat to the U.S. Obama believes this war should never have been started and has been too costly. McCain always has supported this war, and would do the same thing again.

We have a struggling economy with falling incomes and rising unemployment. Obama has offered large middle-class tax relief. McCain, on the other hand, is offering smaller middle-class tax cuts and saves his largest tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

We have an addiction to oil that threatens our national security, our economic security and our environmental security. Obama has a plan to wean us off oil by investing in cleaner energy alternatives. McCain, on the other hand, is proposing we continue our reliance upon oil and threatens our environment by drilling on pristine lands.

In 2007 we had 45 million uninsured Americans including 8.1 million children. In the next 10 years those numbers are expected to rise dramatically. Obama has a plan that (according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center) would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 34 million people by 2018 and cover almost every child. McCain’s health care plan, however, would barely make a dent in the number of uninsured (again according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center) leaving nearly 70 million Americans without coverage by 2018.

With issues this important, the differences between the candidates so dramatic, and the quality of the debate coming from the McCain-Palin team so childish, it leads one to believe that maybe the McCain-Palin team does not want to discuss the issues. After all, it was McCain-Palin’s campaign manager Rick Davis who recently said “This campaign is not about issues.”

This week Davis was right, this campaign was not about the issues. But let us hope, that the McCain camp puts aside the petty politics they displayed this week and gives the American people the debate we deserve.

MICKEY HEPNER is an associate professor of economics at the University of Central Oklahoma.