Associated Press: New Palin Smears Carry Racial Subtext; May Cost John McCain Votes Nationally

You bet your ass they carry a racial subtext, and one certainly hopes that'll cost McCain votes. Fact: McCain would rather lose his soul than an election, and he's now well on his way to doing both, God help him.

This effectively signals the end of the McCain-Palin campaign as a campaign of ideas. And yes, any time you criticize as terrorist-loving and America-hating one of the most historically optimistic presidential campaigns in history, you're trolling for the bottom-feeding racist vote. There is simply nothing about the Obama-Biden campaign which suggests Obama doesn't "see America as you and I do" (Palin's words), and this time the McCain-Palin camp's lies are betraying not only their dishonesty but, moreover, their attempt to send coded messages to any white American still reluctant to join the rest of us in the 21st century and shed their aging racial biases.

And for the record, everyone knows that calling McCain "erratic" is a reference to his variable temperament and questionable judgment, not his age, as both temperament and judgment have been running themes in Obama's campaign ads (and, ironically, in McCain's, with respect to his supposedly sound "judgment" and years of leadership experience--which presumably equates to a leader's temperament).