and McCain et al will drive on, undeterred, just as Bush did with his endless attacks on the Constitution, pushing his unitary executive, salting the Dept. of Justice and every other department with secret (and not-so-secret) Bush loyalists. No matter how outrageous, a lie forever repeated, especially in an aggressive manner, and any conduct no matter how filthy and underhanded, if stubbornly continued becomes accepted, the new norm--- making the next even more outrageous lie or more underhanded conduct seem not so bad. And so, increment by increment, they get away with it, and eventually, they win.

This is another example of the shock doctrine noted by Naomi Klein in her book on disaster capitalism, and of the vicious unprovoked personal assault on an opponent to throw the opponent off balance noted by Suskind in his book One Percent Doctrine when discussing Bush's personal modus operandi. The republicans will ignore public proof that their ads are blatant lies, they will ignore (and smirk) at Obama's high-minded high road campaign attitude, relying on commentators including talk radio to justify themselves and blame Democrats for mud slinging and lying.

They intend to frame Obama as an out-of-touch, foreign elitist, and McCain as the underdog, a war hero who is at a disadvantage at the hands of traitorous (or unpatriotic) Democrats, fighting for the American ideal, and so on. We can see what the Republicans' true opinion of the American voter is when we see their ads: Sophomoric ads appealing to latent misogyny and bigotry, suitable for the adolescent machismo and mindset of the usual politically illiterate sports-worshipping beer drinking male voter. My question: have the republicans cased the voter correctly this time around, or can Obama and the young crowd overwhelm these automatons? Do Republicans fear that Obama might bring in enough new voters to drown the old stereotypes? Is that why we are seeing an intensifying effort to purge voters who do not fit the Republican stereotypes... even though these new voters are entitled to vote, they are not controllable by the old Republican cliches and so could upset their standard applecart.

Remember, conservative commentators keep reminding us the "basic American" public is very much Republican-inclined, only two Democratic Presidents since FDR have achieved over 50 percent, so these new Obama-voters must not, cannot, be legitimate, and Republicans automatically reject their right to vote. Thus, we have a two-pronged attack: negative campaigning, and suppressing the vote. Are we going to be timid and let them get away with it, yet again?