The Executive Director of the think-tank, Danquah Institute, Gabby Otchere-Darko, has tackled the worrying subject of gutter politics in an interesting discourse.

It is a conversation which seeks to discourage the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) from joining its National Democratic Congress (NDC) counterpart in the gutter of local politics and above all ensure a tranquil nation ahead of the 2012 polls.

We agree with the discourse and its import, given the recent temptation by some NPP members to almost join the ruling NDC in a game which is the hallmark of the latter.

Decency, decorum and sincerity are all essential attributes of politics. Unfortunately, these are largely lacking in our part of the world, thus giving the otherwise noble occupation a bad name.

Politics has almost been driven by insults, insinuations and unsubstantiated charges which provide enough reasons for decent persons to shy away from rendering invaluable service to God and country.

So intense has the anomaly been of late that some persons in the NPP almost fell into the trap of following the NDC to a turf in which it is used to and known to belong.

Time was it when the most preferred campaign path of the NDC was identifying its political opponents with drug trafficking, breast-fondling and other unsubstantiated charges, most of them so puerile that they made first time strangers to the country wonder whether that was the standard of politics in Ghana.

The trend went on for a long time until the perpetrators discovered the uselessness of the approach and perhaps returned to the drawing board.

We are glad they made the discovery of compiling their so-called achievements in Green Books. Phantom as the publications may be, they present us with a decent opportunity to debate the authors about the authenticity of their claims. That is decent politics.

The debating of issues is the most preferred path in politics and not lies and character assassination. It would serve the interest of the NPP largely and the country when it ignores the immoral pastime of the NDC and concentrate on an issue-driven campaign.

This is the only path towards the hearts of especially floating voters who survey the political atmosphere to determine who pollutes it most.

Such tangible achievements under the Kufuor administration as the National Health Insurance Scheme, Metro Mass Transit System, the improved road network, among others, can easily be measured against what the subsequent Mills government garnered.

Would it be feasible to provide a free SHS education in the country as Candidate Nana Akufo Addo is proposing?

The NPP presidential candidate has not wavered in his position that this pet project of his is feasible with cogent points to support it.

When President Mills, on the other hand, argues that there is going to be a one-time premium for the national health insurance programme, a Kufuor project derided when the idea was mooted, Ghanaians are unable to agree with him considering the almost moribund state of the health delivery module at this stage.

Yesterday, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia took Ghanaians into the bowels of the economy when he delivered the 2012 chapter of the Ferdinand O. Ayim Memorial Lectures.

It was a revelation which left those who listened to him in no doubt about the stark and scary reality about the state of the economy, against the backdrop of the often cacophonous presentations by NDC propagandists.

Next week will see such propagandists running over each other in an apparent attempt to undo the points he raised.

The now discerning Ghanaians will not be swayed by the volume of insults but by the soundness of the presentation of politicians. The days of Hitler's Goebbels propaganda module have long been interred with the dictator.