While the nation’s economy is melting down, John McCain’s campaign rhetoric is heating up.  The candidate’s attacks are downright incendiary — angrier and uglier by the day.

Unfortunately, the Arizona Senator has adopted the very same tactics that he once rejected.  He’s apparently tossed out the high-minded principles in favor of the Atwater-Rovian playbook, concluding that the “Straight Talk Express” can only go but so far.

He’s now on a different route.  And he’s lost his way.

John McCain has decided to try the low road to the highest office.  He’s resorted to the slash-and-burn, smear-and-fear, us-versus-them brand of politics that has characterized and tarnished so many elections past.

In recent weeks, McCain has made direct, blatant appeals to people’s fears, not their hopes.  He’s taken to reviving false, outlandish allegations and apparitions, slandering Barack Obama by saying he is somehow different — the “exotic other,” appearing out of nowhere to do only who knows what.

At a rally in Albuquerque, McCain asked with deep suspicion, “Who is the real Barack Obama?”  Someone in the crowd screamed in reply, “a terrorist!” — right on cue.

The McCain camp has even re-hashed the fleeting and flimsy association between Obama and another Chicagoan, William Ayers.  The Republican ticket has discarded all decency and fairness, holding Obama responsible for Ayers’ past sins — committed as a member of an anti-Vietnam War group, when Obama was just 8 years old.

At campaign rallies, McCain’s running-mate, Sarah Palin, is stoking the fire, and inciting the crowd.  No doubt, the Alaskan wolf-hunter knows how to serve up the red meat, raw.

To a crowd in Colorado, Palin said this about Obama: “This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.”

In Florida, she said, “Our opponent is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

A man yelled, “kill him!”  Another shouted racial epithets at an African American member of a TV crew.  Others hurled obscenities at reporters in the press area.

Frighteningly, the McCain rallies are taking on the characteristics of a mob.  Amid the hostility and demagoguery, civility is being sacrificed, along with truth and honesty.

So, our financial markets are in crisis, our economy in turmoil and the American dream at risk.  Meanwhile, John McCain’s campaign rolls deeper out of bounds and into the mud.

America deserves better.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized .