The Fear Factor

I'm not surprised that the presidential campaign has taken a decidedly negative turn in the past few days. This has a lot to do with the economy. I think my father put it best when he said that the economy is "going sideways." There is no clear direction for the financial system of our country. While I believe the bailout was necessary to protect the investments of Americans, there is a lot more that needs to happen. If the polls are to be believed, many more people trust Barack Obama to fix the economy than trust John McCain, whose primary financial advisor, Phil Gramm, said that the recession was all in our minds.

Because more Americans trust Barack Obama on this point, the McCain campaign is desperate to change the subject. So they have given new life to long-discredited attacks on Obama's character because of his associations with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In response, Obama has mentioned McCain's association with Charles Keating, an instrumental part of the savings and loan failure in the late 1980s and a man who was sentenced to prison time for committing fraud. The interesting thing to me is that McCain said months ago, when Hillary Clinton tried this tactic (or is it a strategy?) on Obama in the primaries, that he would never engage in this kind of campaigning. Well, he's doing it now. And it is shameful. McCain is solely to blame for this negative turn.

There is a difference in their attacks. Obama's attacks have a foundation in reality. McCain really was admonished by the Senate for his role in the Keating scandal. It really does reflect directly on his character. Obama had nothing to do with Ayers's violent past, and his pastor's sermons have been taken wildly out of context. More than anything else, Obama has been attacking McCain for running a negative campaign. I think this is relevant because it points out McCain's hypocrisy and his lack of original ideas for solving our financial dilemma. Hopefully, McCain's poll numbers will continue to plummet and he will realize that the only way to save his legacy will be to stop attacking and return to an honorable campaign.

But it gets worse. Sarah Palin is using this garbage in her stump speech and inciting radicals in the crowd. It is now public knowledge that her rally in Clearwater, Florida attracted a bunch of racists who hurled epithets at black camera crews and one audience member yelled that they should kill Obama. Audience members at McCain's rallies are calling Obama a terrorist. This is just wrong. I know some of my readers support McCain, and I think you need to ask yourselves: do I really support a man who is inciting violence against his opponent?