Barack Obama today:
It's easy to rile up a crowd by stoking anger and division. But that's not what we need right now in the United States. The times are too serious. The challenges are too great.
The American people aren't looking for someone who can divide this country -- they're looking for someone who will lead it. We're in a serious crisis -- now, more than ever, it is time to put country ahead of politics. Now, more than ever, it is time to bring change to Washington so that it works for the people of this country that we love.
Obama Prepared Remarks, quoted on TPM
As the stock market crashes below 8000, I want to talk about our choice this year. This election really is hope vs. fear and hate. John McCain is whipping up the forces of American fascism, of hatred and fear, but he will not succeed.
More, after the fold.
E. J. Dionne has a column today well worth reading that also fits some thoughts I had this morning. Entitled, Hoover vs. Roosevelt?, it shows what is at stake in this election.
Yesterday, John McCain approved the hate filled ramblings of this person at his rally:
Today in Wisconsin, a McCain supporter unleashed a long, unhinged rant in which he blasted the "socialists taking over our country" and referred to Obama and Nancy Pelosi as "hooligans." McCain didn't utter one syllable of objection. In fact, he nodded bemusedly at the "socialist" mention.
And at the end of the man's rant, McCain said that the man was "right."
TPM
And here's the latest McCain hate ad accusing Obama of working with a domestic terrorist:
And we cannot forget the face of American fascism, Sarah Palin:
Sarah Palin was on the verge of inciting a race riot in northern Florida yesterday. At her rallies, the Republican faithful hurled a racial epithet at a black sound man, and screamed "kill him" and "treason!" at Barack Obama.
"Boy, you guys just get it!" Palin responded. This reaction, presumably, was what Palin had in mind when she urged John McCain to "take the gloves off."
The Nation: McCain's Ayers Attacks Backfire
E. J. Dionne lays it out:
Hope vs. fear, new vs. old: Barack Obama and John McCain have placed their bets. These are the terms on which the 2008 presidential campaign will be decided.
snip
Obama and McCain are giving us a clear sense of who they are and how they would lead. It would seem that Obama has been studying the 1932 campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The key to Roosevelt's victory was not a big program but a jaunty sense of optimism in the midst of despair that led to his signature inaugural line -- "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Less famously, Roosevelt declared in his acceptance speech that "this is no time for fear, for reaction or for timidity."
In recent days, Obama has painted himself as calm, pragmatic, open and hopeful. He seemed to be channeling FDR when he told a crowd in Indianapolis on Wednesday: "This isn't a time for fear or for panic. This is a time for resolve and steady leadership."
As for McCain, his campaign is trying to sow fear and panic about Obama. That's exactly what Herbert Hoover tried to do with Roosevelt. Days before the 1932 election, Hoover attacked Roosevelt's "inchoate New Deal." He predicted it would "crack the timbers of the Constitution" and warned voters to beware of the "glitter of promise."
Hoover vs. Roosevelt?
Dionne concludes that, in American history, "hope almost always beats fear."
McCain's type of hatred worked in Weimar Germany. It won't work here.
Barack Obama today:
I know these are difficult times. I know folks are worried. But I believe that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis because I believe in this country. Because this is the United States of America. This is a nation that has faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats. And at each and every moment, we have risen to meet these challenges - not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans. With resolve. With courage.
We have seen our share of hard times. The American story has never been about things coming easy - it's been about rising to the moment when the moment is hard; about rejecting panicked division for purposeful unity; about seeing a mountaintop from the deepest valley. That's why we remember that some of the most famous words ever spoken by an American came from a President who took office in a time of turmoil - "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Now is not the time for fear. Now is not the time for panic. Now is the time for resolve and steady leadership. We can meet this moment. We can come together to restore confidence in the American economy. We can renew that fundamental belief - that in America, our destiny is not written for us, but by us. That's who we are, and that's the country we need to be right now.
snip
It's easy to rile up a crowd by stoking anger and division. But that's not what we need right now in the United States. The times are too serious. The challenges are too great. The American people aren't looking for someone who can divide this country -- they're looking for someone who will lead it.
We're in a serious crisis -- now, more than ever, it is time to put country ahead of politics. Now, more than ever, it is time to bring change to Washington so that it works for the people of this country that we love.
I know my opponent is worried about his campaign. But that's not what I'm concerned about. I'm thinking about the Americans losing their jobs, and their homes, and their life savings. We can't afford four more years of the economic theory that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.
Obama Prepared Remarks, quoted on TPM
Hatred is UnAmerican, John McCain. Americans are going to adminster a whoppin on McCain-Palin of historic proportions on election day. Hope will prevail.
Update I: From TPM, video of Barack: