I’ve had it with the hate speech and the McCain/Palin campaign’s cynical us vs. them, pro-American areas vs. anti-American areas rhetoric. I’m all for a campaign of ideas. But they have unleashed a scary—yes, scary—force.

What’s so wrong with Washington? More than half a million citizens live and work here. A lot of us work in the government Palin claims to despise. That means we take a job with lower pay—compared to say a job with Big Oil—because we like the idea of public service. We don’t take six months off to race snow machines. If Palin hates Washington so much why does she want to work here?

Death threats are now part of our 24-hour news cycle. Along side death threats are the endless viral videos from McCain/Palin rallies where America’s finest line up and spew hate into the nearest shaky handheld camera. The videos are chilling.

Via TPM:

And now tonight, Sarah Palin will laugh at herself on SNL. She will look like a good sport on a network whose reporters she refuses to engage. The press will still gush over her being a good sport. In the morning, she will go back to squawking about Bill Ayers, spreading lies (yes, lies), and spreading hate.

Ta-Nehisi Coates links to some news—the backlash among voters has already started:

“An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group’s Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.

Attorneys for the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now were notifying the FBI and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division of the incidents, said Brian Kettenring, a Florida-based spokesman for the group.”

Thank you, McCain-Palin. And thank you Fox News. Maybe it won’t matter. Today, Obama attracted 100,000 people at one event.