I've been following electoral politics for many years, and I've never seen anything like the recent turn this campaign has taken.  On the one hand, I've been kind of surprised that race hasn't played a bigger role in the campaign and that it's taken this long for ugly racism to appear.  After all, the polls show with undeniable consistency that, barring some kind of sudden change, we are just weeks away from electing our first black president.  That's historic and as with every signficant step forward we make as a country, one would have to be naive not to expect some sort of backlash.

On the other hand, now that that backlash is here, its tenor is extremely disturbing.  The spectacle of McCain assuring his hysterical supporters that Obama is indeed not an Arab (terrorist), is a US citizen, is a decent man, etc. are the most jarring thing I've ever seen in American politics.  (McCain is of course only trying to douse the flames his own campaign started, and which as other readers have pointed out, his ads continue to stoke.)  This is much worse than the Willie Horton ads; the McCain camp has vilified Obama in a far more direct and vicious manner.  In his desperate attempt to overcome Obama's growing lead and to salvage his amateurish, schizophrenic campaign, McCain has helped bring American politics to a frightening new low.