In the End, This is All They Have Left

And So, At the End, This is All They Have Left

We have now entered the last 30 days of the election, and let's see what we're seeing rolled out by the McCain campaign and the Republican party members.

Minority lending caused all of our problems. If the poor, innocent banks hadn't been *forced* to make loans to minorities, we wouldn't be in the situation we're now in.

Of course, this ignores the massive deregulation given to the financial market who were given loans far and above any federal requirement to use the FHA loan program to help the poor and minorities find a house. It ignores that the definition of a "sub-prime loan" is practically "one that Fannie/Freddie Mac wouldn't buy" (until the situation started to turn into a crisis, so they did – and then they fell).

Real estate agents putting up signs saying Osama-Obama not welcome here.

Remember, if you're name is one letter off of someone else's, you must be related somehow. I can understand the problem – whenever I see the word "Bush", I think "Bust", and then I wonder what size bra he must wear.

White supremacist group spreading anti-obama fliers.

The argument is "countries with black leaders have more problems, therefore so will America". Which is like saying "Asian people are more likely to eat rice, so if you start eating rice, you'll become Asian".

Now, you could discount a lot of these as just the racist rantings of individuals. And let's face it - there's a lot of stupid people out there spouting off their mouths (incredibly, some of them get paid by Fox News).

Then we get to the McCain campaign. It started pretty simple - what I'd called "image racism". There's an advertisement from the McCain campaign trying to tie Senator Obama to a man named Frank Raines.



Of all of these, the last one rather insidious. What's the connection to Obama and Raines? Well, Raines worked at Fannie Mae. The Obama campaign had a telephone conversation with him. And what else -

Oh. That's right – they're both black. And they're going to victimize that poor white woman looking sad in the advertisement. Maybe they're going to jump her in the park or something. But other than the color of their skin, there's not a whole heck of a lot that ties the two men together.

But hey - it wasn't directly said by McCain campaign people. Just in the ad. Until Governor Palin said Senator Obama "pals around with terrorists".

Even though, so far every investigation has pretty much concluded "Well, they live in the same neighborhood, once worked at the same charity, and Ayers once raised some money – but that's about it. They never "paled around", Obama has always condemned Ayers actions."

I think Mike Murphy said something this morning that I think is relevant: if Ayers was a runaway CEO on Wall Street, then people might give a care today.

But the point is: this is all the McCain campaign has left. Polls overwhelmingly show Obama is ranked higher on the economy. On domestic issues. McCain and Obama now tie on who would handle Iraq better.

So what's left for McCain to run on? Character. McCain and Palin want to paint Obama as an "unknown" (even though he's been in the public eye for nearly every day for the last 2 years). He's untrustworthy - though it's been McCain and Palin are more known for their negative, lying ads.

But what else can they do? When you can't run on your record as a deregulator, on your record on being wrong about starting the war in Iraq versus finding the terrorists in Afghanistan - all you've got left is racism and smear.