I'm only talking about what Wallace said when he ran for President in '68. As Governor, he was every bit the man John McCain is. Lewis is talking about the early 60's not about the Presidential campaign.
But maybe I should confine my analogies to non-3rd parties where McCain clearly has no equals.

Borrowed from another blog....

Would the country's collective point of view be different?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe
disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?

Wh at if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while
he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain
killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption
in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings
and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included
discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in
another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.

Just weeks from the election, and we're talking about race again. Perfect.

When the Republicans treated us to the not-so-subtle racist message in their video, "Service" during the Republican National Convention, I knew this was coming. I just didn't know how they planned to pull it off. Turn your speakers off and enjoy this remarkable video again. A celebration of whiteness--people like "us"--waving their flags and saying the pledge of allegiance and displaying their deep, patriotic love for this white country. Oh, and four black faces: a criminal, a slave and two women who can't seem to find the negro seats on the bus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWZGG3jpqLQ

God damn every last one of these cockroaches.

I have to make a historical correction.

Some of the Presidential campaigns of the 1800s make this one look like a tea party between friends.

While not the sleaziest in history, this campaign is most likely the sleaziest in the past 120 years or so, however.

And almost all of the sleaze is on the side of the GOP.

Whatever honor and integrity McCain may have once been able to claim (and I, frankly, think he was overrated from the start) is now completely gone. The man is a demagogue, deserving of absolutely no respect or admiration whatsoever.

The time is right to begin re-evaluating McCain's reputation. For years he's been thought of as an independent thinker, a person who puts ideals above his own interests, a person who generally can be trusted to do the right thing. But his record portrays very much the opposite:

His legendary anger
His role in the Keating Five scandal
His philandering and ugly abandonment of his crippled first wife
His support of the confederate flag in 2000
His vicious, race-baiting, hate-mongering campaign for the presidency this year

All these things point to a man who does what he needs to do to advance his own interests and then asks forgiveness, using that act of admitting his mistakes as a way to craft a reputation for honesty and integrity. But when a person repeats the same cycle over and over--making the same mistakes repeatedly and then dismissing those mistakes with an apology--one has to question the sincerity of the apologies. Increasingly, McCain seems like a man unable to control his impulses who has cleverly used the act of admitting to his failings as a way to build a sturdy, but false, reputation for integrity. In reality, McCain is a man who will do anything he wants to satisfy his desires. The apologies are just convenient ways to transform venality into virtue. But they are fake.

McCain increasingly appears to be a despicable, mediocre person, controlled by impulse and anger. The mainstream media cannot, of course, be so direct. But historians can. And it's time to start re-writing McCain's history.

A recent online internet poll that opened shortly after the Lewis statement shows some not-too-surprising results:

How big of a role has race played in this election?

Major 51%
Minor 35%
None at all 14%
Total Votes: 136,725

The Poll is still open with one vote per e-mail address allowed.

Anyone managing a major campaign KNOWS the necessity of behavior control of crowds. The distance between just "fun" partisian, to rage, angry and out of control is a very short space and time, and those who plan such events ARE RESPONSIBLE for managing what happens. So let's hold McCain's advance people, and the candidate who hired them responsible. They know how to put the people with the message they want up front and close to the candidate -- it is how one puts forward the overall message.

As to John Lewis -- no one knows more about how a crowd can be egged on to violence -- violence essentially protected by the Sheriff, local cops and all, than Lewis does. The Civil Rights Movement was all about non-violently putting the physical body on the line in such provocative situations, so as to illustrate to the broader world the core eliminationist violence at the heart of the denial of humanity and civil rights by the mob attacking marching protesters. When Gandhi said "hit me" to the British Officer standing in the way of his making salt from the ocean waters -- he was illustrating the violence at the core of Colonial Authority. When Lewis chose to march in the front lines at Selma -- he was illustrating the depth of violence behind the denial of the right to vote.

In this instance, Lewis is putting his credentials, and the deep respect he earned in Selma and as a Freedom Rider up in McCain's face, and saying -- "John, this is the same sort of crowd behavior I've experienced before." If you are a leader -- take responsibility for your crowds.

McCain's chances of winning were always remote. He's a Republican with three huge negatives - George Bush, Iraq and the economy. He added to that troika one of his own making, Sarah Palin. His fate was really set when he selected his campaign advisers, a greasy bunch of lobbyists with sordid pasts.

It's still a long way to November 4th and the McCain-Palin campaign is frustrated as none of the usual smear sticks to Obama, like he's Teflon. Everyone is immune to those Bush-Cheny-Rove type tactics after eight years so the Republicans bring out their last card, veiled racism. They are scared, they could spend the next eight years on the outside of government.

Is the violent speech spontaneously coming from extremists at McCain-Palin rallies or are they plants in the audience subtly being orchestrated by the campaign. I'd put my money on the later. This is McCain's last chance and he wants to be president more than anything else. If he should win, he's banking on all of this being water-under-the-bridge, people do have short memories.

Check out this video about Sarah Palin. It's crazy hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1exiyBYnJ00