Following up on what Josh wrote here... Yesterday, a McCain-Palin audience member shouted "kill him" about Senator Obama. Another audience member called him a terrorist. And another one shouted at an African American camera man, "Sit down, boy!"
These aren't fringe wackaloons. The Republican Party, especially since Nixon's Southern Strategy and his race-baiting hatchet man Pat Buchanan, has been using race as a wedge -- in broad daylight. Lee Atwater, Jesse Helms, Castellanos, Rove, Schmidt, Palin, Giuliani, Bobby May. These aren't mustachioed old-timey relics from the 19th Century. This is the modern Republican Party.
And yet somehow they're still respected as a very serious major party.
Ironic Appropriate that Palin was wearing all white yesterday. The only thing missing was the pointy head gear.
UPDATE: Palin was wearing white again today.