Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Cher che la Femme

As we approach the final days of this endless campaign season, a new, but predictable narrative is emerging: Why John McCain is losing. It offers a meagre multiple choice. In the weeks following the Republican Convention in Minnesota, the McCain campaign ramped up its attacks on Barack Obama in ugly, unseemly ways, sneering at his educational achievements, distorting his public record, linking him with domestic terrorism, and questioning his patriotism. McCain's campaign operatives announced that this was not going to be about policy, but about personality. A deliberate, strategic decision was taken, to attack everything and propose nothing. While this is hardly surprising to many of us, it seems to have done permanent injury to the fragile egos of America's pundit class and, remarkably, to the professional politicians who regularly clutter the national stage.

"This is not John McCain," laments one talking head. "This is not the man I've known and worked with in the Senate," mourns a Democratic colleague. What's remarkable about these comments is their frequency. It's as if John McCain has been taken over by some virus. Matt Taibbi, of Rolling Stone writes an excellent and scathing piece about Karl Rove's takeover of McCain's campaign. Chris Matthews looks both wistful and demoralized even as he surrenders to the rapture and the romance of an Obama victory, and William Kristol of the NYT urges McCain to "fire his whole campaign."

But unfortunately, this IS John McCain. He hasn't changed. He's just "come out." John McCain chose the people who run his campaign. John McCain picked the advisers who develop and direct his policy positions, so he alone, is responsible. The chief of his transition team was a lobbyist whose client list included Saddam Hussein. His chief campaign operatives were instrumental in lobbying for the deregulation that directly resulted in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac unraveling, Phil Gramm wrote the legislation that resulted in the sub prime credit default swaps that collapsed our financial house of cards, and Charles Black, his campaign Chair, has been a lobbyist for years for big oil and the banking industry. John McCain chose these people because he wanted them. He's comfortable with them. They are his friends. He shares their views.

The vicious attacks on Obama are John McCain's. He owns them. He does very little to distance himself from them. He chastises a supporter at a rally for calling Barack Obama "an Arab" as he betrays his own prejudices, by saying he is not an Arab but, "a good, decent man." His own campaign operatives are using mass e-mails to McCain supporters linking Obama to domestic terrorists, yet he expresses outrage at Congressman John Lewis for comparing him and his campaign to the bad old days of George Wallace and some real domestic terrorists. McCain goes with what is expedient. This is the real John McCain. This is the man who makes fringe people feel so comfortable at his campaign events, that the calls to "kill him!" directed at Barack Obama, are becoming a regular feature at McCain rallies.

Interesting isn't it. As our country teeters on the verge of financial bankruptcy, in some grand, Shakespearean way, it's a metaphor for the bankruptcy of the Republican Party, especially as it is articulated by the conduct of the McCain campaign. Total moral bankruptcy is the only explanation for McCain's behavior and his choices.

Part II: Cher Che La Femme

It's always hard for politicians and pundits to say, "I was wrong." They rarely ever do. Especially the media's talking heads. So if they're forced to blame John McCain for the conduct of his own presidential campaign, they have to do it in a way that exonerates him. They accomplish this by blaming everyone around him. Which brings me to their second choice for why McCain is losing. Sarah Palin.

Credible conservative columnists are frothing at the mouth about Palin, especially as her favorable poll numbers drop. She's no longer a "breath of fresh air." She no longer "energizes the base." She is a disaster. She is, in the words of Conservative columnist David Brooks, "a fatal cancer on the Republican Party." "What was McCain thinking?" they ask. Well, he picked her. This was his decision, so he has to own it. John McCain deliberately chose Sarah Palin.

It was no accident. It wasn't that she didn't get "vetted properly." It wasn't the result of a compromise between Rove and McCain because of Leiberman, the guy John "really" wanted. Many are now saying that it was McCain's reckless and irresponsible decision to go with someone like Palin that will cost him the election. Losing, in effect, becomes Palin's fault. But it's not nearly that simple. Not even when coupled with the current unpopularity of the Republican Party and George Bush.

When the pundits point to the fact Palin's not qualified, and McCain has put the country at risk, they are only talking about the Vice Presidency. They haven't bothered to consider the broader implications of the toxic breeding ground for hate and vitriol that she and John McCain both foster and encourage on the campaign trail. While these tactics are often described as "Rovian," Karl Rove didn't invent them, and they only work because we let them. Rove may be evil, but it is John McCain's embrace of this evil that is defining him. There are consequences for these campaign excesses, too, even as we are now facing the consequences of the excesses on Wall Street. The McCain/Palin campaign has sown seeds of fear and division, of intolerance and hatred, like time bombs. If it is their intention to scare people, they've succeeded. But not in the way they intended. As McCain's poll numbers continue to plummet, it's pretty clear that a lot of average Joe's out here are terrified of the possibility of a McCain victory. Vote.