Playing the Race Card

John McCain left a better impression among viewers of the third and final debate with Barack Obama than he did in the previous two. That’s not bad news for the Republican Senator three weeks before election day except for the fact that snap polls by all major broadcasters right after the debate showed Obama to be the clear winner. Obama’s lead in the polls, currently between 7 and 14 percent, was obviously not affected by the last debate.

Despite the positive trend for the first black presidential candidate, it’s still too early to write off John McCain already. Karl Rove, the architect of George Bush’s successful campaign, thinks McCain will have to pull off a comeback the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Harry Truman’s surprise victory in 1948. Still, there are signs that the dirty campaign being waged over the last ten days by the McCain/Palin team may well pay off on election day. The slogan “Barack Obama – too risky for America” along with Sarah Palin’s assertion that Obama “pals around” with terrorists and “doesn’t see America like you and I do” – is about as racist as it can only get in the 2008 presidential campaign.

When confronted with these matters in the debate, McCain’s eyes opened wide in mock surprise. He pretended to know nothing about them and he feigned shock. But of course these attacks are well planned – they pursue a goal that McCain is beginning to see as his only hope: that in the anonymity of the voting booth voters will be afraid to vote for a black man.

We’ll have to wait until November 4th to see whether or not the strategy worked. But one person has already lost: John McCain. The respect he’s earned from people across the whole political spectrum has been squandered. The very choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate was an insult. What McCain’s campaign is doing now is both disgusting and dangerous.