Just two observations on last night's debate.
It's shocking that McCain thinks "spread the wealth around" is an idea which people will reject. Have we no commitment to our fellow citizens at all? Isn't that what a progressive tax policy exists for? And have we forgotten (if we ever learned) that the taxation policies of the last eight years have been concentrating wealth, taking from the working and middle classes to enrich the wealthy? If there's "class warfare" in this picture it's in the ruinous and regressive Bush tax policies. To keep them would be to perpetuate an injustice. How can righting a wrong be painted as a wrong?
I got goosebumps when Barack Obama repeated the words "terrorist" and "kill him" - called out at the mention of his name at a Palin rally - which led John Lewis to accuse the McCain campaign of reckless encouragement of race hatred. McCain doesn't like being likened to people in lynchmobs, but Obama has to live with the threat and the horror that the idea of lynching is not dead - and yet cannot speak out against it without being accused of "playing the race card." He had to change the subject (McCain raised it) by saying that voters care more about issues than about "our hurt feelings." What nobility.
I can't wait for this campaign to be over. The recklessness permitted McCain and his running mate and the restraint forced on Obama (both because of race!) depress me immeasurably. But we're better than that. I'm getting the stronger and stronger sense that we're going to do this thing, it's actually happening!... are others feeling that too?
