Yes Virginia. It Was Once Worse. Much Worse.

The McCain-Palin descent into the fever swamp is getting a lot of play, but I want to point out that as bad as it is, it really could be much worse. We have a black man named Barack Obama running for President, and by and large people are not saying anything stupid or engaging in quasi-riotous behavior. I really thought that Kentucky Congressman saying 'boy' was going to be the start, but I imagined it would descend into madness much faster and much more sharply. Contrast this to, say, the insanity that occured during the 1993-1994 health care debate, incited by talk radio, encouraged by Newt Gingrich, etc. Or late Clinton Derangement Syndrome, where sitting members of Congress casually brought up assassination. I'm not saying the Steve Schmidt incarnation of the McCain campaign has been wholly above board, but it's nowhere near as bad as it could be.

It's still going to get nasty out there. If anything, the fever swamp may start to feel abandoned by the McCain campaign and get even crazier as McCain doesn't launch a full-throated culture war attack. But so far, things seem fairly tame.

Update: I want to make it clear that I'm just talking about the level of eliminationist rhetoric. The McCain campaign is running 100% negative ads which have featured a series of gross distortions and outright lies. But imagined we would see a much more jingoistic campaign, and it hasn't happened.

Comments

[low-tech cyclist]

I think that, other than during the two-week lifetime of Palinmania, the Republicans that matter pretty much realized that this wasn't going to be their year, and didn't bring their 'A' game. McCain had to make the attacks on Obama himself that, in another year, a bunch of 527s would have done.

I think that rather than go all-out against Obama, and still likely lose, they're setting up McCain as an object lesson of what happens when a RINO runs. (No, he's not one, but that doesn't matter to the party's hardcore types. They see him that way.) If they can't have the White House, they'll increase their stranglehold on the party.