Stuttering YouTube Attack Creates 'New Low'

So here is another way in which the media was used as a tool by one political party in order to bash the other. The title of this article was the first thing that caught my attention: "Campaign Blasts Stuttering YouTube Attack as 'Cheap Shot'". The article basically involved Virginia gubernatorial Democratic candidate, Creigh Deeds, and the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, Sheila Johnson, who supports Republican candidate, Bob McDonnell. Although I do not know much about this particular political race, I wanted to read more about the "new lows" that people will go to in order to put down another person/party. Since we have talked in class a lot about the ways in which political parties are less likely to engage in convincing debate and instead will attack each other and focus more on personal issues than policy issues, I found this article to fit in just perfectly.
BET co-founder, Sheila Johnson, was seen on YouTube mocking Creigh Deeds for his occasional stuttering. In the video, Johnson is speaking to a group of wealthy donors and telling them that Virginia needs a governor "who can really communicate and Bob McDonnell can communicate". Johnson then went on to say that "the other people I talk to, especially his op-op-op-op-opponent, di-di-did this all through my interview with him".
According to one source defending Deeds, "stuttering is generally misunderstood by people who don't stutter, which means 99 percent of the population." For instance, "too many people still equate stuttering with being dumb". Basically what Johnson's message did was "play to the ignorance of the people".
After reading the article, I was a little surprised to find that a professional person like that would take such a cheap shot to make fun of someone's disability, in this case, stuttering. As we are all aware, it is definitely not unusual for parties to digress from convincing, constructive debate and attack one another via personal issues. However, this particular situation, to me, seemed a little extreme and very immature. I think there are much more important issues concerning Deeds, such as his policy stances and beliefs that need to be focused on rather than his minor communication barrier, which has little to no effect on the big picture.