McCain's Snarling Mob

I've spoken before about what a dangerous game I think the McCain/Palin campaign plays in trying to rouse fear about Obama in the electorate. The video demonstrates the results of that tactic. They're ugly, and even McCain seems to think that things are getting out of hand. You reap what you sow, Senator. Will he stop the vicious ad campaign? Will he muzzle himself, but especially, will he muzzle Palin? I think not.

Josh Marshall at TPM says:

And yet this conveys too much suggestion of planning and intent. I have more the sense of someone desperately casting about and losing control of the situation itself. Even hypocrites can get in over their heads. Indeed, in a more nuts-and-bolts strategic sense McCain has really gotten himself into a hole because the campaign he's been running has almost entirely been premised on the claim that you should be scared of an Obama presidency. Not that McCain, if he'd run a very different campaign, couldn't have run on issue disagreements with Obama. But right now if you take away fear of Obama becoming president, there's almost no reason not to vote for him since McCain has basically conceded the issue agenda to Obama. If you look at every poll for months, voters are dying for change. Fear of Obama is the only thing keeping him from leaving McCain in the dust. Take that away and McCain's done.

Further, Juan Cole at Informed Comment says:

So having created this foaming-at-the-mouth mob, McCain finds himself booed by it when he offers some pro forma boilerplate about Obama being decent and a family man. But his campaign ads haven't been alleging decency, they've been alleging "terrorist ties." You can't wave raw meat dripping blood at Doberman Pinschers and then suddenly pull it away without producing snarling, baring of incisors, and straining at the leash.

I have nothing further to add.