Editorial

McCain going too far into gutter

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Less than five months ago John McCain was declaring that there was no room for negative campaigning, that the inability to tell people why you should vote for someone, and instead why you should vote against someone, represented a failure of policy.

Which is why his shift in campaign strategy over the last few days has got to turn the stomach of good, honest, thoughtful Republicans as they watch the moral meltdown of their party's standard bearer.

He's looking less and less like the maverick we'd hoped for and more and more like a bad clone of George Bush, using the tactics of fear to disguise bad or incoherent policy.

McCain and Palin's desperate distortions of the truth over the last few days have reached the level of the Big Lie, and demonstrated a level of hypocrisy virtually unparalleled in recent memory.

To use such venom in your speeches that people in the audience begin to yell out "kill him (Obama)," and then to point to that section of the audience, smile and wave, rather than immediately stopping for a moment to condemn those outbursts, is morally repugnant. If you incite a mob, you are responsible for its actions.

Most Republicans we know are good people who have to be appalled at what they're seeing.

Faithful members of the party need to let McCain and Palin know in no uncertain terms that these tactics are beyond the pale, and do not represent the moral standards of their party. They do not want the armor of their certainty in basic Republican values tarnished with slime. Better to go down in defeat with honor, than win with dishonesty and dishonor.

Unfortunately, there are some people who are drinking the koolaid simply because it is being handed to them in a red cup.

In this campaign, most Americans have been rejecting negative politics. They want a reason to vote for someone. Any time, both in the primaries and in this general election, that any of the candidates have resorted to negative campaigning it has backfired and appropriately cost them votes. Both are ratcheting it up right now, but McCain and Palin have gone well beyond what could remotely be called appropriate. Americans are fed up with this style of campaign. If McCain continues in this mode GOP stock will fall faster than a security on Wall Street. He is driving the crucial independent and undecided voters away in droves.

No good Republican is ever going to vote for Obama, the philosophical gap is too wide. But perhaps the GOP faithful may seriously consider skipping the presidential part of the ballot in protest, rather than cast their lot with a standard bearer whose standards have so suddenly and inexplicably fallen so low, and focus their time, efforts and ballots on the equally vital congressional races.

Perhaps four years from now they can nominate a candidate they actually can be proud to support.

-- Kelly Everitt