With polls showing that McCain is on the verge of losing his life-long ambition, he's making one last ditch effort to change the tide. He and Palin are going dirty. They're grasping for straws by going after Obama's acquaintances (Obama's own past isn't quite as checkered as theirs, huh?).
Many of you have written diaries about how reprehensible this attack is and how it's trying to paint Obama as an outsider, someone who isn't one of us. I totally agree, and I hope that you don't stop. We need to continue the pressure on the traditional media to cover this nonsense. As a country, we deserve much better than this... and yet, I'm ecstatic that McCain is going there, and here's why:
By now, you've probably heard of McCain's penchant for gambling. He's demonstrated it on many occasions during the campaign, the most notable being the Palin pick for VP. He's doing it again with this vicious line of attacks. McCain thinks that the result is either a win or a huge loss. His thinking on this is clear: what difference does it make if I lose by 1 electoral vote or if I lose by 200 votes? A loss is a loss. If I'm to fail in my ambition of being the most powerful man in the free world, what does the final score matter? I'm a maverick, what do I care what effect I have on my party's chances down-ballet?
That mentality is what is going to play into our hands. Trying to paint Obama into a big, black, Muslim boogeyman may have worked earlier in the campaign, but the public has now seen Obama in the debates. Those 50-70 Million people see a thinking, calm, knowledgeable man with good judgment. As some diaries have pointed out, even many racists are coming around to supporting him. The scare tactics will not work. The strategy will backfire, and we will have a bigger margin of victory.
The margin of loss may not matter to McCain, but it will matter to President Obama. A 1 vote victory is "you're the lesser of two evils," but a landslide is a mandate to get things done. A 1 vote victory is having 56-58 Dems in the Senate, but a landslide is having a filibuster-proof 60+ majority. A 1 vote victory is Stevens being replaced with a moderate, but a landslide is replacing him with a younger, just-as-progressive version. A 1 vote victory is a half-assed improvement to healthcare, but a landslide is guaranteeing affordable health insurance to all those who want it. A 1 vote victory is having to concede to corporate tax cuts in order to get middle-class tax cuts, but a landslide is a fair tax code. A 1 vote victory is concessions to oil companies, but a landslide is an Apollo program for alternative energy.
This is why that while I find McCain's strategy to be reprehensible, I'm not at all sad that he's using it.