A recent video report from Qatar-based news network Al-Jazeera highlights racial tension in the US presidential election through interviews with McCain/Palin supporters at a Sarah Palin rally Oct. 12 in the rural southeastern Ohio town of St. Clairsville.

The comments provided to Al-Jazeera US correspondent Casey Kaufman were as shockingly ignorant and hostile as anything we have seen in videos from McCain/Palin events around the country. "I'm afraid if he wins, the blacks will take over...," says one woman, "...He's not a Christian! This is a Christian nation! What is our culture gonna end up like?" Others in the video repeat this woman's false assertion on Obama's religion, insisting that Obama is a Muslim despite the well-known fact that he is indeed a churchgoing Christian. Others in the video insist that Obama is either a relative, a friend, or a supporter of terrorists. Still others are more frankly racist in their comments about Obama. "When you got a nigger running for president, he ain't a first stringer...," one man says, "...He's definately a second stringer." While one woman expresses a fear that Obama and his wife might be secretly "anti-white," another woman says of Obama: "I don't like the fact that he thinks us white people are trash.... Because we're not!" There is of course nothing in Obama's history to suggest that any of these things are true of him, but that doesn't seem to stop these people believing them nonetheless. 

Kaufman also speaks with an Obama supporter peacefully demonstrating outside the rally with a small group of friends. The young man details the verbal abuse he has received from his neighbors due to his support for Obama, and reveals his fear that "some of these people might try to hurt Obama."

Palin's own speech at the St. Clairsville rally was no less divisive than the comments of her supporters, as CNN observes. "We know who the good guys are...," Palin said as she spoke on the threat of terrorism, "...We know who the bad guys are." At the mention of "bad guys," the crowd shouted, "Obama!" Palin continued: "Those who sympathize and support those terrorists who would seek to destroy all that it is that we value, those are the bad guys, OK?" On Planet Palin, that of course means the scary black guy with the funny name.

If John McCain has dragged his presidential campaign into the mud, Sarah Palin has dragged it into the sewer.