Halloween

Happy Halloween! Want to see something truly frightening? Turn on your TV and wait for a McCain ad. They continue to step up the politics of fear, choosing not to focus on what McCain would do as president, but instead choosing to make the idea of President Obama as frightening as possible. If McCain wins, I'm not afraid that he'll make a bad president (Palin is another matter, of course). He'd still be a step up from W. I just think Obama will make a much stronger president. No, my biggest concern is that Republicans would be further convinced that fear-mongering is the best way to win elections.
McCain, Palin, and the RNC have called Obama dangerously inexperienced, a shady character with links to religious extremists and terrorists, and a socialist. Some of McCain's supporters have taken these already inaccurate and offensive labels a step further to call him a threat to our security, a secret Muslim, a terrorist, and a communist, not to mention Hitler and the Antichrist. Beware of the monster you create. When you train your followers to fear, can you be surprised when they also hate? These aren't the politics we want to see, and they're not the politics I would have expected from McCain.
The ubiquitous "Joe the Plumber" (who, apparently, is not actually a licensed plumber) now seems like McCain's top economic adviser. He would get a bigger tax break from Obama's plan, but doesn't seem to realize that. That makes him a hero to McCain - someone too ignorant to know what will benefit him the most. He's now campaigning for McCain, and recently told another McCain supporter - while being filmed - that he agreed that Obama as president would bring death to Israel. So, apparently he's also now a foreign policy expert, with as much grasp on foreign affairs as he does on economic policy. Is this really the circus McCain wanted as his presidential campaign? Where did it go wrong? I blame the RNC, which has become a monster, feeding off fear, hate, and ignorance. But McCain should have known better. He should have control over his own campaign. Instead, he let the monster control him.
So, kids, monsters are real. Forget watching a scary movie tonight. Just turn on the TV. Watch some ads. Watch the campaign news. It just might scare you to the polls.