As I sit here, losing my taste for politics, I can't help but wonder if that's what the McCain camp wants. The campaign has gotten so ugly over the past few weeks, that I want to shut all my browser windows and pretend nothing is happening until November 4th.
I woke up to stories about the McCain camp's newest horrors. A new Ayers ad will be running nationally, John McCain is personally calling Barack a liar, and supporters of the Republicans are shouting things like "Off with his head!" at rallies, and wearing shirts depicting Obama with a devil mask. I suppose I shouldn't be letting these things get to me; they are angry, ridiculous, hateful attacks, and should be left in the gutter, not to be picked up by curious, politically obsessed little girls.
It's hard though, this election has felt like a holy battle. Picking up the only weapons I have at my disposal (words), I have tried to honorably fight for my country. Despite my riotous fury, I have tried to use an even hand when discussing the wrongdoing I see going on. I see the basic principal of fairness has a value I hold as dear as the social political values I am fighting for, not to be given up for any reason.
When you are trying your hardest to be just, you expect the rest of the world to play by the same rules. When this doesn't happen, as is often the case, your hope starts to deflate a bit. And that's the Republican game plan. What is Obama's campaign about, if not hope? If we lose this hope, what are we left with? We're left same country we've been living in for the past eight years. A country with a crumbling economy, losing friends abroad, and on the brink of all out culture war. George Bush's America. That's where John McCain and Sarah Palin want to live.
And if I'm not willing to give up my hope, then what? They want me to think "What's the point? Why should I go on fighting so hard, in such a dirty and unfair arena?" They want me to think the only way to win is to sink to their level, throwing the same amount of mud, with the same bullshit content. But I can't do it. I see in John McCain the lesson of what politics can do to a man, a once honorable man who knew what is was to be the target of an unfair political smear. Now he is a shell of his former self. Nothing he says anymore can be taken for the truth at face value. He has abandoned his ideals, and wants to drag America down with him.
Well I'm not going down. I'm going to stand right here, being fair in the face of unfairness, looking hate in the eye and not budging. It takes a lot more than all that ugly to take down all our hope. Go ahead, just try and make us move.
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