Matt Ortega

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) and Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) are attempting to paint Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) as the “other” in the presidential race with unseemly code words to scare away rural white voters from the Democratic ticket.

This latest turn by the McCain campaign is the lowest of the low. An obvious last ditch effort that attempts to exploit, in fact is tailored to, discredited online smears of Senator Obama.

McCain rhetorically asked his riled up crowd this morning in New Mexico, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” The question elicited one supporter to yell out “Terrorist!” It was a reaction that McCain’s handlers obviously designed to draw, but it appeared to shake up McCain for a moment (based on his reaction) before he quickly regained his composure and continued to stoke the misconceptions about Obama that have plagued him the entire campaign.

At a Palin rally, while she went through her scripted schtick about this weekend’s New York Times article that, in fact, debunked claims of associations between Senator Obama and former ’60s radical, William Ayers, one man yelled out “Kill him!”

Let there be no mistake — the rhetoric employed by the McCain campaign is specifically targeted to scare off rural white voters from an African-American candidate with a funny name.

This is what they have left — fear, smear and hate-filled rhetoric utilizing code words to paint the first African-American nominated to a major party ticket as “other” or “foreign.” It reeks of desperation, and more of the “say or do anything” attitude that is not only dishonorable, but also beneath the offices in which these two seek.

As McCain and Palin draw more outright bigoted epithets at their rallies in the lead up to the November 4 election, I genuinely fear what stirring up their base with attacks on Obama as un-American, “different,” and “other” may lead to — outright violence?

Those two are playing with fire and it is quite clear they do not give a damn who gets burned. These final weeks may define McCain in the history books — win or lose — but either way, one thing is for certain, he chose to tarnish his image in a last ditch effort to reach the altar he so desperately seeks.

(Ed. note: I say this not as a Democratic partisan, although I am one, but merely on a basic human level — I cannot describe how revolted I am by the bitterly hateful rhetoric employed by the McCain campaign now. This post is most likely an injustice to those sentiments, but, I have to say that, thus far, no one has hit the nail on the head on this better than Anonymous Liberal. A must read.)