Should we be surprised about McCain?

In recent days the McCain/Palin rallies have gotten ugly, so ugly that John McCain himself got booed when he asked his supporters to be respectful of Barack Obama.

But before he was asking his supporters to tone it down, McCain himself played the game of slash and burn politics. He hired for his 2008 campaign the same people who (working for George W. Bush) demonized him and ruined his honorable campaign back in 2000.  Back in 2000 McCain said that there was a special place in hell for those people.  Now there's a special place for those people at his right hand, in his campaign.

But we shouldn't be surprised by the extremely negative and disrespectful tone of the McCain campaign.  During the primary he did little to silence the misogynist voices among his allies.  One such encounter just happened to be caught on tape (email subscribers need to visit the blog to view the video):

Question: How do we beat the bitch?
McCain: (after some initial guffaws and banter) That's an excellent question.

And this is a man of honor? Is that how he allows his supporters to refer to his Senate colleague? He could have easily rebuked the questioner's tone and language. But he didn't.

I thought McCain wanted to run a different kind of campaign, a campaign about issues, not personality, an honorable campaign. 

But he doesn't.  He just wants to win.  Country McCain First.

In putting political ambition before honor or simple decency, he is watching his personal integrity sink faster than his poll numbers. And now he and his running mate are loosing control of their mob.

McCain's non-response to this "bitch" comment now stands as a telling sign of what was to come.  Thank God there's only three more weeks left . . .

- - - - -
For some good reflection on the increasing negative tone of the McCain campaign, check out Playing with Fire (and the links it contains) from The New Yorker.

Comments

[Sam]

Towards the end of the clip he did say "I respect Senator Clinton." Definitely not clinging to his guns or religion ;-)