Try disgusting. Brings the old "Martin Luther Coon" billboards from the 1950s to mind.

Who are these people? Between reading this story and watching the video posted earlier outside the McCain rally, I am truly at a loss. All I can do is pray that these people are the minority. Dear Lord, please please please don't let these people be the ones who choose the next President of the United States.

electing a muslim person would be a more conservative move than electing mccain. just goes to show how truly ignorant you have to be to put up a sign that equates a muslim with allowing abortions and gay marriage.

...what it's like living in the middle of the country, despite having been born and raised there. California really is a bubble.

Of course, one irony here that the conservatives never get is that, actually, conservatives actually equal more abortions because they don’t believe in sex ed or birth control. But I also hate letting facts get in the way of a good billboard.

belief that Ozarkers are ignorant country bumpkins? If they would put the same effort into indoor plumbing that they put into their meth labs they might someday disprove that belief.

More abortions - wrong. Abortion is already legal in this country and Obama wants to keep it that way. So no increase. Also, because if he actually pushed through his comprehensive sex education program (I'm not holding my breath) teens and young adults would be better informed on avoiding conception in the first place. Result: less abortions. The religious right refuses to acknowledge this bit of common sense, of course, preferring sexual ignorance.

Raise taxes: Wrong for at least 95% of all who pass by the sign. The figure is probably higher when you consider the low likelyhood of a nationally proportional number of the wealthiest top 5% driving though West Plains, MO.

Pretty damn unlikely that President Obama will wear a turban either.

Most people only care about facts as long as they support what they already want to believe.

This is sadly true with supporters of both parties.

I thought of replying in a thought out response but people don't care about that, they only care about confirmation bias and 2 sentence soundbites.

Hate, anger, and fear are the bread and butter of what's left of the Republican Party these days. The problem the mainstream GOP has run into is they just can't really properly channel the bigotry, jingoism, bellicosity, and fanaticism of their movement. They'd be doing so much better if it was 1908, when such attitudes were more part of the acceptable mainstream. The problem the GOP faces is that it's 2008, not 1908, and countries have to move forward if they're to survive.

doing what racists crackers do.

>...countries have to move forward if they're to survive.

Gleep! Sorry, although I completely agree with this sentiment, the obvious rejoinder to me was "There is no guarantee that we as a country will survive". Interestingly enough, I think it was McCain who expressed this sentiment himself in the movie "Why We Fight".

I live in the same bubble as Janice78 and sometimes forget what it's like in my home state of Ohio. I came from the more liberal area - yay, Kucinich! - but the whole place feels like it's jumped to the right several times since I left.

Or maybe I went left. Or both. Whatever.

Anyhow, seeing how things have gone & went, the rejoinder popped into my head & sent a bit of a chill down my spine. I'm hardly a end-of-the world nut, but I *am* concerned over the shift not just over the last few years, not just over the last 30 and not just because the stops get pulled out during elections.

Here's to hoping I'm delusional.

These psychos are incredibly, incredibly dangerous.

It's only a matter of time before one of them decides to "save America" from that Muslim Obama.

"Jesus told me to kill him!" the rabid McCain supporter will shout as the Secret Service wrestles him to the ground.

"Jesus told me I was gonna be a hero!"

God, if your really up there, please get your insane followers under control NOW!

What you're saying is that there is moral equivalency between the people at these increasingly threatening rallies calling Obama a terrorist, shouting out "kill him" and spreading any filthy lie they can make up, all of it encouraged by McCain and Palin, and actual criticism of the policies of the Republican party for the last eight years, and McCain's support of those policies. With the exception of cherry picked occasional outliers on obscure websites you aren't seeing that from the progressive side of this debate. Sure, Sarah comes in for ridicule - I would say rightfully so - in particular since for the most part it's her own verbatim words being used to mock her.

But to fall back to the tired and completely dishonest "they ALL do it" rubric is not just deceitful, it's outright crazy.

There's no moral equivalence between Tina Fey and "Kill Him"....

were not indicative of the general population. Over generalization of their supporters isn't the right way to go.

People in general believe what they want to believe. They will get hit with opinion leaders like Rush, O'Reily and Palin and if their views hit home, they stay there.

I don't think anything but a nice sitdown with them over coffee for a few hours discussing the facts will convince them otherwise. It's difficult to do, as I have tried, and a 30 second campaign ad can destroy everything you've tried to build.

Changing a lifestyle is hard to do.

All this and videotaped crowd scenes like the one in the more recent post are going to do is repulse the independent and undecided voters who still haven't gone into Obama's camp.

If you're an intelligent, educated voter who is still reasonably trying to make up his or her mind about the candidates, and you see Obama talking rationally about the economy, the single greatest crisis we've faced in this country in about 30 years, and then you see McCain's ads and billboards and supporters spewing vile, hateful, barely-coherent lies and rumors and idiotic filth, what are you likely to do?

You're going to run as fast as you can to the candidate whose supporters seem sane. This "politics of hatred" will bury McCain. We're looking at a 400 EV landslide for Obama. The main risk now is keeping him alive until the election. I really don't think it's overstating that some deluded redneck would try to take him out.