[This will be the first and last thing I’ve said on my blog about the 2008 US Presidential Election. I’m sorry for the rambling tone, but not sorry at all about what I have to say. —sgp]
I have no respect for John McCain or the GOP.
Even though I disagree with many of the planks in the Republican party’s platform, I have tried to maintain respect—if for no other reason than charity—for the party and its members. This respect has been eroded by witnessing Clinton’s impeachment in 1998 and the Bush 43 presidency for the last eight years. It took John McCain to deliver a mercy kill for whatever respect I had left for the self-described “party of Lincoln” by (a) picking an unprepared, wild-eyed, crazy liar for a running mate and (b) taking the GOP base’s hatred towards the other and brandishing it as a weapon.
You’ve Got Mail
My wife is registered to vote as an Independent. That makes her a “swing voter”, since neither party can claim her. Thus, we get all of the political junk mail and robocalls we could ever want from both sides. But this year is special since NC is very much “in play” for the Presidential election.
Now, I’ve lived in North Carolina my entire life. And I’ve seen ugly campaigns run, mainly at the Senate level. The worst I can remember was an incumbent Jesse Helms running against former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt. Gantt is African-American, and Helms, was … well, Helms. I remember seeing the infamous Hands ad on TV. I also remember people around Charlotte saying that Gantt had a pretty good shot at unseating “Senator No”. In the end, Helms won by 2%. Did race play a factor? You betcha.
That was 18 years ago. The “Hands” ad seems quaint compared to the bile that the McCain campaign has spewed into my family’s mailbox. McCain and his lipstick-wearing pitbull have crossed the line by mixing “Obama” and “terrorist” in the same sentence in front of the red-meat loving GOP base, with expected results. Of course, McCain tries to put the genie back into the bottle and scores an EPIC FAIL as his own supporters boo him for daring to suggest that Obama might be merely “someone he disagrees with”.
What May Come
As the campaign heads into the home stretch, I’m worried that things are going to get worse. The GOP is staring into the face of a likely defeat, and they’re spending their energy challenging the legitimacy of a Obama presidency (ACORN, voter fraud, etc.). Should Obama be elected, I’m genuinely scared some wingnut with a rifle is going to try and vote with a bullet in order to save the country from a “radical Socialist Anti-American Muslim baby-killing black man”1. Should that come to pass, the blood will be on McCain’s campaign as well as every single pundit, blog or news media outlet that has legitimized this willful ignorance.
The Bottom Line
To those of you who disagree with Barack Obama on the issues: I respect you and your opinions. We may not share them, but that’s OK.
To those of you who are voting for McCain because of Obama’s race, or because you want to believe that your paranoid fantasies of “who Obama really is” are real: you are voting against reason; your true religion is fear and loathing.
1 The fact that Obama isn’t white may be enough to stir anger in a garden-variety bigot, but asserting that he may be a radical Socialist Anti-American Muslim baby-killing black man is the GOP’s way of making Obama the world’s biggest strawman.