Is there always so much hyperbole during election seasons?

I'm old enough I should know, but I don't remember it being like this before Obama.

I mean, really. The stuff people are claiming about him is ridiculous. He's a socialist. He's really from Kenya. If he becomes president, he'll destroy America. (People who say that have apparently forgotten that he's already president.) He's channelling his father, who was an "anti-colonialist", which apparently is not to be confused with other anti-colonialists like George Washington and Ghandi. He wants to turn the US into an Islamic state. (Yes I've heard that.) He goes to a radical Christian church and hates white people. (And the same people say the latter two things without realizing they're contradicting themselves.) Crazy stuff that is more conspiracy theory than sanity.

I think he's been a great president. He's getting us through a horrible financial mess made by Republicans that they'd like to throw us right back into. And he's had to work on that while being blocked and slandered pretty continually.

I remember people saying candidates were boring or too liberal or not smart enough, but not the hyperbole we get with Obama.