Mobocracy

Read the following piece by John Dickerson on Slate today about a McCain-Palin rally held this past week in Waukesha, WI.

Descriptions of the emotion vented therein by McCain backers (at Obama, socialism, and especially the media) were both interesting and disturbing, but mostly disturbing. Politically, of course, this tone does little to help get McCain elected president 25 days out, as explained by former McCain advisor John Weaver (via Politico):

“People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Sen. Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Sen. McCain,” Weaver said. “And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive.”

“Sen. Obama is a classic liberal with an outdated economic agenda. We should take that agenda on in a robust manner. As a party we should not and must not stand by as the small amount of haters in our society question whether he is as American as the rest of us. Shame on them and shame on us if we allow this to take hold.”

Thank you.

However, Team McCain failing to connect with swing voters is not what most concerns me this year.

While no one in Waukesha—or other McCain rally sites, to my knowledge—have quite crossed the line between frustration (often aimed at McCain himself for not attacking Obama more fiercely in debates) and inciting violence, history repeatedly shows how easily one motivated whackjob can jolt the course of human events.

The days of American public figures being shot down like geese in the 1960s was before my time (RFK was slain two months before I was born). But suffice to say, I’m not interested in experiencing that same madness first hand – especially when the fury expressed by some McCainiacs makes McCain’s own notorious temper seem cool by comparison.

As for me, I’m wondering when the first noose or fiery cross will show up one day outside an Obama state election office.