When did campaigning for public office turn into mudslinging, lies of omission, trashing the opponent and scare tactics designed to strike fear in the hearts of the voters?

Probably when some caveman wanted to take over the biggest cave.

Misstatements on the campaign trail are nothing new. In fact, in our nation’s earliest days, there were such scandalous claims made that would make today’s campaign tactics more like bedtime stories than Halloween horror tales.

In our free nation, one that prizes its ability to speak out and even protects it with Constitutional law, “anything goes” was invented long before the Internet was even a gleam in Al Gore’s eye (or that of whoever else claims to have invented it).

Campaign ads that overwhelm the airwaves are the best example of tactics that your second grade teacher would never have allowed in her classroom.

And filtering out the half-truths that are either designed to deceive or anger the populace isn’t easy. Most people don’t try. After all, if a lie is repeated often enough (or through enough people’s e-mail accounts), it has a tendency to be taken as truth, simply because of its proliferation.

Is this any way to elect a president?

We don’t think so. It seems this presidential election, in its waning days, is less about what one candidate will do for the country and its residents than about the dangerous policies the opposition will implement.

In simpler, paraphrased words: “Ask not what the candidate can do for you, but what his opponent will do to you.”

Sunday’s offering of campaign claims that have been debunked was only a minute sampling of what is actually being said. And in some rallies, the crowds are going from supporting their candidate to threatening the one from the opposing party.

Now that’s scary, even scarier than the stock market and your mortgage and the cost of gas and food all rolled into one episode of “Fear Factor.”

But the false claims keep coming. They’re about taxes, misinterpreting or downright deceptions about votes. They’re about patriotism or repeated misinformation about religious beliefs, “palling around” and even critical comments about the potential first ladies’ physical appearance.

There’s Sarah Palin’s theatrical folksy ways (and a legislative investigation into her ethics as Alaska’s governor) and Joe Biden’s opinions on the primary campaign trail that have changed fairly dramatically since he was tapped for the second-in-command.

And there were so many missteps in their debate (which received a larger viewership than either of the presidential matchups) that we’ll simply advise readers to go to factcheck.org to check them out.

These two men, both good men who are flawed, as all men are, are running for president of the United States. With each day that passes, this campaign is less about discussion of the issues and too much attention (on their part and that of Americans) on disputing the other side’s claims rather than on promoting their own hopes and plans. That’s what we as voters need to hear.

And that’s what they should be talking about as Nov. 4 draws near.