Winning is everything

Desperate times call for desperate measures.
And with national polls unaimously and dramatically indicating that the electorate is moving in droves towards Democratic candidate Barrack Obama, the John McCain campaign has begun to resemble the Titanic in its last throes.
Earlier this year McCain vowed to run a clean campaign on the issues. And you know something? I believe he meant it - at the time. But with his poll numbers plummeting and time running out I am sure McCain's political strategy team convinced him that the only way to reverse this trend is to go negative.
So we get Sarah Palin trotting out the sorry line that Obama was palling around with terrorists, as if Obama was in the room 40 years ago when Bill Ayers was plotting against the government as a member of the renegade Weathermen. Never mind that, as has been reported ad nauseum, the two served together on some education study panels and Ayers did throw a fundraiser for Obama during his first state legisaltive run, but there has been no evidence the two ever tipped any Iron City beers together.
We get Cindy McCain saying it sent chills through her when she found out Obama voted against funding for the Iraq War when her son was over there. Never mind that Obama's vote was against a bill that did not have a timetable for withdrawing the troops. Never mind that Sen. McCain also voted against legislation funding the war because it DID have a withdrawal timetable in it. Never mind that when the vote occured Cindy McCain probably didn't know Barrack Obama from Jack Reed.
We get the local pols introducing McCain at local rallies referring to Obama by emphasizing the candidate's middle name "Barrack Hussein Obama" as if that is the clinching evidence that he's a Muslim. Never mind that it has been well-documented that Obama is and always has been a Christian.
What is more disturbing about these campaign rallies is the audience response. Written and filmed accounts indicate the audience is stirred into a hateful frenzy, calling Obama "a bum," "a terrorist," and, at one Florida rally, an exhortation to "kill him."
Yeah, this is real presidential. This is bringing the country together.
Righteously indignant McCain supporters are going to boil over that it's a legitimate discussion of character. That these tactics (or is it a strategy?) are important to show the true measure of the man. And, of course, at the same time, they will dismiss their candidate's actions, as part of the Keating Five, in the S&L loan crisis.
They will say, "Obama does it, too." But the Democrats didn't raise the Keating Five issue - although it's a legitimate issue of McCain's legislative record - until after the GOP raised the Ayers issue. And no Democrats are using similar perjorative terms to describe the Republican candidate. You don't see bloodlust permeating the crowds at Democratic rallies.
No, this is the sad, sad show of a campaign that feels its chances of winning slip-sliding away and is willing to literally do and say anything to get that brass ring. And it unfairly tarnishes the patriotism of a respected man. Is this really how John McCain wants to be remembered after his inspirational military service and nearly three decades of public service?
When you're willing to call a presidential candidate dangerous your appeal is to those even below the lowest common demoninator. And who knows where that will lead?