Perhaps you and I don't view this election as a war, but our opponents do.
Conservatives and Republicans view this election as a deciding moment in history for very different reasons than Democrats do. Conservatives and Republicans see Obama's candidacy as an assault on every value they espouse, and his open-mindedness shakes the foundation of their belief system. They believed Democrats would run an angry candidate, someone slinging mud about Bush at every opportunity, rehasing the wrongs of the past eight years. What they got was a calm, collected, charismatic, optomistic yet realistic guy who, despite being characterized as "eloquent" and a "great speaker," has much more in common with Joe Six Pack than John McCain ever did.
Joe Six Pack isn't Joe the Plumber. Joe Six Pack is the guy who's still paying off his college loans while trying to put money aside for his own kids' college education. Joe Six Pack's wife works full-time. They didn't inherit millions or marry into money. They are working hard, trying to provide a good future for their children and hoping that they'll have a little something extra so that they don't have to work into their 70s.
Barack and Michelle Obama finished paying off their school loans not too long ago. They worked jobs that benefitted communities (Barack as an organizer and educator, Michelle in education and health care administration). You know what? They were successful. They came from hardworking families. They exemplify the American dream.
I've long felt that what seperates Democrats from Republicans is that Democrats want everyone to be taken care of by government, and Republicans just want government to take care of them. Joe Biden says paying taxes is patriotic. I think tax cuts are selfish. Wherever you are and wherever you go, driving down a road that's had its potholes paved or waiting in an emergency room in a county hospital or checking out a library book or calling 9-1-1 in an emergency, taxes are at work. They aren't inherently evil, they are necessary. They don't necessarily need to be so high, but our opponents don't think in terms like that: it's all or nothing.
No taxes. No abortion. No stem cell research. No gay marriage or unions. Yes prayer in school (and all Christian, all the time). Yes war in Iraq. Yes torture.
When we prode them to consider the gray areas, they lash out. They see every issue of their platform as non-negotiable, and they see every compromise as a failure. Take abortion. What if a woman is raped? Nope. What if she's underage? Still nope. What is it's incest? Nope. Have that baby. Life is sacred.
Well isn't the life of the rape victim sacred?
Let's talk about Welfare. Our opponents don't want money taken out of their pockets to pay for another family that is down on their luck. But when their own family is down on its luck, they want everything they can get. Don't help them, HELP ME. I need to be helped.
John McCain and Sarah Palin secure the future of the narrow-minded conservative crusaders. Barack Obama secures Democracy in our future. But they don't like his flavor of Democracy, so they call it communism.
I think they fear that our nation electing its first black president opens a door to all other ideas that they fear, like a gay president, an Asian American president, a Latina president... when really, what would be better representative of the bedrock of this country.
Instead...
Obama is a presidential candidate, but he's also a member of the United States Congress. Imagine if someone put Joe Lieberman's face on a bill wearing a yarmulke and Hasidic Jewish apparel with matzoh and menorah? Hillary Clinton on a bill wearing an apron holding a tray of cookies? John McCain using a walker, wearing Depends, eating creamed corn? The people responsible for this "Obama Bucks" are animals.
They're also desperate. And that blinds them to their own ignorance. Sarah Palin and John McCain have convinced their followers that an America in Obama's hands is more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, more succeptable to economic collapse, and primed to corrupt your children and children's children. So they cry out at rallies in fury and fear. And rather than alter the tone, the McCain campaign lays it on thicker, adding more fuel to the fire with William Ayers and Acorn and Michelle Obama not being proud to be an American.
If they stopped to think, even for a moment, they'd see that our message of equality protects them from intolerance, too. Under John McCain, you lose your right to yell things like "terrorist" in a crowd. These people see burning a flag as a federal crime.
Can we reason with our opponents? It's unlikely that we can change their minds now. But if we get Barack Obama elected, and they see firsthand what a better place our country will become, maybe the next election will be less terrifying. Maybe less hate will bubble up from angry crowds. Maybe our children and our children's children won't have to live through an election like this ever again.