The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.

Again, this should not be surprising to anyone who was paying attention at the end.  The only good thing I can think of is that it finally forced some daylight onto the ugliness that still exists.  It’s been underground for a long time, not accepted in the public sphere. 

My hope is that, now that it’s more visible, it will get the push-back that it needs.

* corrected spelling in the title.

Friday night (which happens to be the start of our Sabbath) my wife answered the phone to hear a man stating he was from the McCain-Palin campaign. He asked who she was supporting. She replied that we will vote for Obama. He replied with “but he’s a f—–g n—er!”.

It gets better from there.  If by better, you mean, worse.

But today, McCain raised a new question that could escalate that sound-bite campaign war: Who is he “gonna test” if elected president? And how?

“I have been tested,” McCain said, with a certain gritted-teeth look at the state fairgrounds in New Mexico. “I’m gonna test them. They’re not gonna test me.”

Oh, lord.  Does anything else actually need to be said?

ST. LOUIS (AP)—Blues goalie Manny Legace left after one period Friday night with a hip injury that occurred when he slipped on the carpet placed on the ice for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The Alaska governor dropped the ceremonial first puck before the Blues hosted the Los Angeles Kings. A narrow carpet walkway was placed from the gate at the Blues bench to center ice for Palin, her husband and two of her daughters.

That would be bad enough, but consider the last time she dropped a puck, it was for the Philadelphia Flyers, who went on to lose every game this season until last night, when the curse was passed on to the Blues.

What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over. Shut down the rapid responses, end the frantic e-mails, bench the spinning surrogates, stop putting up new TV and Internet ads every minute. In fact, pull all the ads — they’re doing no good anyway. Use that money for televised town halls and half-hour addresses in prime time.

This, of course, misses one of the truths of campaigns.  The longer a campaign goes on, the more it resembles the candidate.  In Obama’s case, it has led to a smart and focused campaign.  On McCain’s side, the impulsive, whiplash-inducing spins that make up most of what we’ve seen are actually indicative of John McCain’s character.

At Wednesday night’s debate at Hofstra, McCain might want to volunteer a mild mea culpa about the extent to which the presidential race has degenerated into a shouting match. And then he can pledge to the voters that the last three weeks will feature a contest worthy of this moment in our history.

Yeah, that’s not going to happen.  John Sidney McCain III has gone all-in, and if he doesn’t win, he has nothing left.

“I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons,” [Rev. Arnold Conrad, past pastor of the Grace Evangelical Free Church] said.

“And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day,” he said.

McCain on Friday, from the same article:

On Friday during a town hall-style meeting in Lakeville, Minn., a supporter told McCain that he feared what would happen if Obama were elected. McCain drew boos when he defended his rival as a “decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.”

In another exchange, a woman told McCain that she didn’t trust Obama because “he’s an Arab.” Shaking his head and taking the microphone from her, McCain replied: “No, ma’am. He’s a decent, family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

Either the campaign is not vetting its guests properly (a distinct possibility) or once again McCain is not speaking for his own campaign.  Something tells me it’s the latter.

From an idea by Mur Lafferty, executed by me.

McCain’s poll numbers have been going south since Lehman crashed.  It’s bad enough now that not only has McCain’s campaign dropped out of Michigan, but even Chuck Todd‘s conservative electoral map has Obama winning.

The McCain campaign is going 100% negative, bringing up Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, when there’s no reason that Obama’s surrogates can’t bring up Charles Keating, G. Gordon Liddy, Sarah Palin’s ties to the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, etc.

And with the top of the ticket plummeting, so are races downticket that shouldn’t have been within reach.  Polls have shown that Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) are both in serious danger of losing their Senate seats, and that’s among those that aren’t open R seats.

Even better, though, John McCain has decided on a course of political suicide.  When discussing how the McCain-Care plan, with its $1.3 trillion pricetag would be paid for (keep in mind, this plan includes taxing healthcare benefits for the first time ever, and would only provide $5,000 to replace a $12,000 insurance plan), a spokesman said that they would be cutting into Medicare.

MEDICARE.  That’s going to play well in Florida.  And Arizona.

Now is not the time to get complacent, though.  Now is not the time to lean back and savor the moment.  Now is the time to bury them.  Now is the time to make sure that everyone in Washington knows that the old politics is over.

To paraphrase Karl Rove, we will fuck them.  We will fuck them like they have never been fucked before.  We will take them out of the equation and fix their mess.  Because we must.

Patriotism demands it.

Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame. It’s time to fix the problem.

Um, John, didn’t you just fix the blame?  Just right there?

Oy.

But on Fox News Sunday today, former Bush political adviser Karl Rove dismissed the organizations, claiming that “they’ve got their own biases built in there.” “You can’t trust the fact-check organizations,” said Rove.

Rove, it should be noted, is not just a conservative hack, but has been an advisor to the McCain campaign.

Well, for Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, apparently this actual pro-family act is not pro-family for the group.  The Values Voter Summit, which is organized by the FRC, is this weekend. Sarah Palin had been scheduled to give a speech (probably the same speech she’s given right along), but due to her family commitments, she will not be able to attend.

She offered to present a short video, but Summit president Tony Perkins rejected it, reportedly saying, “That’s not enough.” McCain will be in Washington with no scheduled events this weekend, but will not be attending the summit.

So, being with your family for a major event like shipping off to war is bad values if Tony Perkins wants you to give a bad speech at his party?  Good to know.

Of course, yesterday, on the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington, DC and Shanksville, PA, Sarah Palin gave a speech officially seeing of her son where she conflated 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”

So, she went and ruined the one thing I could support her on.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

Gov. Tony Knowles recently signed legislation protecting victims of sexual assault from being billed for tests to collect evidence of the crime, but one local police chief said the new law will further burden taxpayers….

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

“In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer,” Fannon said.

It would be such a shame if the taxpayers were burdened by paying for forensics that would take dangerous people off the streets.  That’s Wasilla under Sarah Palin.  Imagine if she gets the reins of the country.

Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,

It was in front of reporters, so he knew he was on the record.  He tried to play it off later, releasing this statement through a spokesman:

He stands by that characterization and thinks it accurately describes the Democratic nominee… He was unaware that the word had racial overtones and he had absolutely no intention of using a word that can be considered offensive.

Yeah.  We buy that, right?

Well, then today we learn this nugget about Sarah Palin, Republican VP nominee, from LA Progressive:

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination….

The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

I know not all Republicans are racist.  It would be nice, though, if at an institutional level they didn’t drop these bombs all over the damn place.

Not sure if it means anything. She was mayor, but reported her occupation to the FEC as a housewife and homemaker.

This is video of Amy Goodman of Pacifica‘s Democracy Now being arrested in St. Paul today.

Journalists are being arrested.  This is beyond absurd.

McKain(sic) aides say McCain and his wife Cindy will join Palin in traveling to Jackson, Miss., Sunday at the invitation of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. They said the McCains and Palins want to check on preparations because they are concerned about the people threatened by the storm, which is heading through the Gulf of Mexico and threatening the same area ravaged by Hurricane Katrina three years ago. The storm could hit the coast as early as Monday afternoon.

Even Bush and Cheney are doing better this time in actually looking prepared, but McCain heading there right now will rightly be seen as political opportunism.

(h/t Steve Benen)

The audience at the Pepsi Center is eating out of the palm of his hand. Once he got them to stop cheering so he could speak, anyway.

Also, Bill mentioned Torture in Prime Time! Finally!

“Yes he can, but first we have to elect him.” Best ad-lib of the convention?

If Hillary hit a Grand Slam, what the hell is this? Game seven of the World Series?

Yeah, that was phenomenal.

Liveblogging the speech in 3… 2… 1…

10:40–Bright orange pantsuit–coded message? (just kidding)

10:43–Bill is beaming. Just read his lips–”I love you.”

10:44–Too loud for Hillary to begin.

10:46–”A proud American. A proud support of Barack Obama.”

10:48–”Are you listening, you crazy PUMA bitches?” That’s Mary Ellen, not Hillary.

10:50–”No way, no how, no McCain!” “Barack Obama is my candidate and he must be our President.”

10:53–Memories from the campaign and the people she met…

10:55–Memorial for Bill Gwatney and Stephanie Tubbs Jones

10:56–I I I. I hope this is leading back to the opening points.

10:58–There we go. “Those are the reasons I ran for President, and those are the reasons I support Barack Obama for President.”

11:00–”Were you in it for me or were you in it for the Marine, the mom, etc.” That’s what we need.

11:02–”Government must be about we the people and not we the favored few.”

11:03–Healthcare is still huge for HRC.

11:04–Praise for Michelle and Biden.

11:05–Don’t need 4 more years of the last 8 years.

11:06–HRC was sorely disserved by her campaign staff. This Hillary could well have won and had my support.

11:06–Keep Going! This is one of the best speeches I’ve seen any Clinton give.

11:07–I was right. Orange is a coded message. Hillary is on fire tonight. If this doesn’t end the PUMA craziness, then it truly is craziness.

Thoughts…

Mary Ellen says that all the respect she lost for Hillary over the course of the campaign is back tenfold. I have to agree. Keith Olbermann called it a Grand Slam, I think I have to agree with both of them.

Bill Clinton was beside himself with pride. Now I’m really looking forward to Bill’s speech tomorrow night.