The ugliness is coming out

As the reality of McCain's impending loss sinks in, I think we're going to see some very ugly stuff coming out. It's already started:

So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out "terrorist."

And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out "kill him", though it's not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn't seem to matter.

and:

Pennsylvania GOP calls Obama "a terrorist's best friend."

and:

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

Dealing with this seething hatred is not going to be easy. But I think the fact that McCain and Palin are going there presents a great opportunity: if they are defeated soundly, it will do much to discredit this kind of politics. The Rove strategy was demographically doomed in the medium term (even Rove knew that), but I'm glad it's not working in the short term either.