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• Thursday, September 4, 2008 07:03 AM

  @Mister

  Honey, at this point I could beat the GOP by sitting in my living room and drinking lemonade. The McCain campaign is truly the strangest, most disorganized political campaign I've ever seen. They have the singular distinction of making Obama the conservative choice in this election. Palin did fine but there aren't going to be any tears in the Obama camp today either.

  McCain is a patriot because (God, I can't believe I'm giving this line) he was an American soldier who suffered brutally behind enemy lines and then came home and dedicated his life to public service. As I said before, I don't think that means he should be president, and there are plenty of things you can say about this career. But the man is a sitting Senator, and he and Obama are obviously well matched (at least as far as public perception goes) and he deserves a little respect.

  Even if none of those things were true, Obama himself has called for a change in political discourse, and he has asked his supporters and the media to behave respectfully toward McCain and Palin. He wants to focus on the issues. No, I don't think you can get there just by being nice, but as I said before there are plenty of perfectly legitimate things you can say about the Republicans this year without getting personal. For example: "Thanks, Republicans, for coming on board a change movement that's been going on for more than a year. Glad you've finally seen the light. Obama has already led the Beltway Boys to change and he isn't even the President yet."

  But even if that weren't true, it is still a lousy idea, strategically, to call Palin names. Words like "tramp" and "bitch" make you sound even nastier than she did last night. Hell, even "honey" bakes my cookies right now, and I dont even like her! It's not going to affect my vote, but it does affect my perception of the race, and I'm a well-educated, young, moderate Democrat in a rural swing state. Keep it up and you'll win more votes for Palin than she earned for herself.

  —Effie Perine Read Effie Perine's other letters
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