[xkemp]

Despite your (and many others in this thread) assertion, this is fundamentally new because it hasn't previously been done in political campaigns in any meaningful scale.

The mere existence of a few private campaigns of the sort doen't diminish how much of a departure this is with what has previously been considered acceptable in the political realm.

If we assume that the widespread every-politician-is-corrupt cynicism goes along with/is rooted in a wish to see less corruption, you are also applying rather harmful tactics: by claiming everyone plays dirty, any differences between the candidates are erased, and so are any incentives to behave ethically. The cynicism is self-fulfilling: politicians only ever getting superficial accusations with no discernable relation to their actual behaviour will soon stop trying, because why bother?