I'm no pundit. I'm no stathead. I'm certainly no Chuck Todd.
One thing I know though, is the mindset of "low information voters" whom hold zealous fundamental christian beliefs. I know this because I was raised by many of them.
And one thing is clear to me folks, the video "The One" is not mocking Obama as Moses. Instead, it is precisely designed to stir an irrational fear that Obama is in fact the anti-christ predicted in apocalytpic visions of the end times.
Make no mistake about it.
Why is McCain doing this? To provoke the religious right that might stay home in November into being certain to get out to vote for McCain, a man they do not feel shares their passionate fundamentalist christian beliefs.
However, there is something else. It's more subtle, and more sinister.
Whomever made this video was deliberately trying to appeal to the most volatile mind. The video has the ethos about it of instilling deslusional thoughts of fear about the anti-christ in the mind of the most unstable viewer.
I don't think McCain himself would wish harm to come to his opponent. But McCain is reading cue cards now, and is no longer in control of his campaign.
And this video is a provocation with "open-ended" goals.
As with the recent news of Cheney's willingness to discuss provocations that include the loss of Americans' lives in the name of garnering needed public support for his lusts of war, those who are truly behind this video see any possible "collateral damage" as a minor invonvenience, if not a potential bonus in creating the necessary impetus of gaining public permission to do what he desires to anyway.
Fortunately, it seems America is weary of such tactics, and the numbers this vile propaganda will actually work on are so low as to present little danger as far as winning the election goes.
It's not the number of electoral votes that are the real concern here though.
It's the psychological provocation of that one frustrated and confused christian who may ottherwise stay at home in November, and also that one frustrated christian who might be swayed into committing acts of violence against Obama in order to "save our god-fearing christian nation."
It's despicable of course. But it's true.
I wish it weren't.
But when I saw it, I recognized the code and the tones used by fundamentalist preachers from my childhood, when they wanted to really whip up the fear and frenzy of their followers and get them to "do right by god" out of pure paralyzing fear.
The only hope, is that those of weak mind who may be so effected by it are in numbers so few, as to be a threat that can and will be minimally potent, and maximumly defendable.