The Ephemeric

John McCain has long since given up the right to call himself an honorable man in the eyes of the American people.

Don't get me wrong, he's a patriot and a hero and he has served us with distinction. However the real test of a man is how he acts when the chips are down and he knows he's done for. In this case John McCain has known for a while that this election was un-winnable for him. His response has been to adopt a 'win at all costs' attitude, and one which has seen him trade in his integrity and morals in a desperate attempt to score cheap points off of Barack Obama.

Simply turn your attention towards John McCain attempting to smear Obama's new education plan designed to protect against sexual predators, disgraceful. How about all this discussion about Obama's relationship with a respected professor who used to be a terrorist when Obama was 8 years old, and who also has also had as many dealings with Republicans?

With the biggest financial crisis in decades don't you think there are more important things to focus your campaign on? John McCain has had a devil of a time trying to explain why these rather tenuous smears are more relevant than the economy, foreign policy and health care. And it has left him in a worse position than he was before, with his honor and his reputation in tatters.

Just when you think it can't get any worse, however, the McCain/Palin campaign has hit all new lows this week. In a final act of desperation the campaign has turned to hate mongering.

In recent days, these campaign stops have become a source of racist intolerance, mind numbing claims of Obama being a terrorist and plain and simple violent threats.

All the while the Republican party has allowed this to go on, knowing that they can't officially condone it, whilst acknowledging the benefit of propagating hatred against your opponent. Worse still, Sarah Palin's inflammatory comments add fuel to the fire, prompting comparisons to George Wallace, a symbol of the hatred, intolerance and division that this campaign has come to rely on in such an appalling fashion.



The good news of McCain fans is, John McCain seems to have had enough. It has long been known that John McCain never really wanted Palin as his vice president and wanted Lieberman instead, until his party forced the VP pick. Now that relationship is more strained than ever before as McCain and Palin are locked in a power struggle in argument over how to run the campaign. It has transpired how furious Palin was over the decision to concede in Michigan, and now Palin, it seems, is largely responsible for the new hateful direction of the campaign as she looks to build her position for her future career, while John McCain has finally decided to take the high ground and demand respect and tolerance from his supporters. This has led to the aforementioned rift between the two.

So what can John McCain do? Well right now his campaign is a shambles, and a lot of that stems from the decision to pick Sarah Palin as his vice president, an ambitious, ignorant, arrogant woman with no discernable talent or positive quality, who has been mostly a source of embarrassment for what was, until then, a marginally respectable campaign.

The only decision John McCain has left to make is whether he wants to lose with dignity or dishonorably. It will completely destroy what remains of his campaign, but if he were to come out and publicly rebuke his running mate then at least he will regain a modicum of respect in the eyes of the American people, and be remembered for all the great things he has accomplished in his career, as opposed to all the terrible and sleazy things he has done in his presidential campaign.