Elections have life cycles. They have beginnings, middles, and ends. The beginnings tend to be exciting. The middles tend to be exhausting. And the ends tend to be ugly. The ends are ugly because the candidates are desperate and their teams are scared. They are ugly because the echo chambers have filled with sound, and because the strategists are quietly confident that the electorate will have time only to absorb smears, not recognize and punish their perpetrators.Right now, we're entering the ugly period.Sarah Palin says that "[Barack Obama] is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." Republicans are preparing to elevate threatening Muslim associations like Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University Middle East History professor with longtime Palestinian sympathies, and Ali Abunimah, who I've never even heard of, but who has a usefully Arab-sounding name. The ads on Jeremiah Wright are, of course, being readied even as we speak. The problem with elections is that few candidates can accept that there are years in which they should lose. Not because they are possessed of insufficient virtue, or because they would be poor leaders, but because their party has failed, and the economy is poor, and the Iraq War was a mistake. Because they were unlucky, and it is simply not their year, and their depressing job is simply to sustain the continuity of the two-party system. If McCain were to accept the likelihood of loss, his incentives would be to ensure he falls with honor. Instead, he insists, understandably, on holding fast to the increasingly slim possibility of winning. But that requires an increasingly vicious and desperate strategy that is, by turns, racist, bigoted, fear-mongering, and dishonest. Barack Obama does not picnic with Bill Ayers or seek to plant bombs beneath the White House. It's unclear if he could even identify Khalidi or Abunimah in a crowd. Conversely, no one doubts he could spot the executive director of AIPAC with ease, and probably ask about his children by name. McCain knows all this, but a recognition of that knowledge would require an acceptance of his likely loss. McCain will not accept that loss, and so he will deny this knowledge, and his campaign strategy will be shaped accordingly. A CAMPAIGN JOHN MCCAIN WILL REGRET.
Elections have life cycles. They have beginnings, middles, and ends. The beginnings tend to be exciting. The middles tend to be exhausting. And the ends tend to be ugly. The ends are ugly because the candidates are desperate and their teams are scared. They are ugly because the echo chambers have filled with sound, and because the strategists are quietly confident that the electorate will have time only to absorb smears, not recognize and punish their perpetrators.Right now, we're entering the ugly period.Sarah Palin says that "[Barack Obama] is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." Republicans are preparing to elevate threatening Muslim associations like Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University Middle East History professor with longtime Palestinian sympathies, and Ali Abunimah, who I've never even heard of, but who has a usefully Arab-sounding name. The ads on Jeremiah Wright are, of course, being readied even as we speak. The problem with elections is that few candidates can accept that there are years in which they should lose. Not because they are possessed of insufficient virtue, or because they would be poor leaders, but because their party has failed, and the economy is poor, and the Iraq War was a mistake. Because they were unlucky, and it is simply not their year, and their depressing job is simply to sustain the continuity of the two-party system. If McCain were to accept the likelihood of loss, his incentives would be to ensure he falls with honor. Instead, he insists, understandably, on holding fast to the increasingly slim possibility of winning. But that requires an increasingly vicious and desperate strategy that is, by turns, racist, bigoted, fear-mongering, and dishonest. Barack Obama does not picnic with Bill Ayers or seek to plant bombs beneath the White House. It's unclear if he could even identify Khalidi or Abunimah in a crowd. Conversely, no one doubts he could spot the executive director of AIPAC with ease, and probably ask about his children by name. McCain knows all this, but a recognition of that knowledge would require an acceptance of his likely loss. McCain will not accept that loss, and so he will deny this knowledge, and his campaign strategy will be shaped accordingly. 
