It's sad how low this election has gone. John McCain, early on in the campaign, said repeatedly he wanted to have a clean and honest election, without all of the mean-spirited junk that turns off many voters. Well, I guess he didn't give the memo to his staff. Just before the last debate, reports surfaced of people at the rallies of John McCain and Sarah Palin shouting out 'traitor' and 'terrorist' in responses about Obama. When one woman awkwardly said she had a fear about Obama because he was "arab', McCain told her he was a good man, which did bring some quiet boos from the audience. Earlier that week, when McCain tried to quiet a raucous crowd, the boos were more clear when he tried to calm them.

It fits a bad pattern because McCain, and especially Palin, have been stoking the fires painting Obama as a terrorist and un-American. Doesn't it make sense that some people, hearing this, would react with the most visceral of reactions? There were introductions at some of the rallies where the name Barrack Hussein Obama was mention, meant to heighten the fears of a less informed public. In what seem like years earlier, but was only a few months ago, McCain publicly rebuked a radio talk show host who did a similar tactic.

Honestly, it didn't seem things could get worse, but they have. While racism was always the elephant in the room, no one outwardly pushed that, until now. Days after the last debate, a troubling article came out about the lows representatives of the Republican Party have gone to in spreading fears about Obama.

A recent newsletter from a Republican women's group in Southern California put out a newsletter with the above picture. Yes, that's Obama with watermelon, fried chicken, kool-aid and rib on a food stamp. The caption accompanying the picture in the newsletter said "If elected, what bill would he be on???? Food stamps, what else!" According to reports, the president of the GOP group, Diane Fedele claimed that she never meant to offend when she reprinted the image and placed the comment.

Um, what? C'mon, she didn't know putting a black man running for President on a food stamp with watermelon, fried chicken and kool-aid wasn't offensive? You know, of course it was offensive and of course it was meant to draw upon his race and make people afraid, but what scared me more were some of the responses in blogs to the article. I checked out a number of sites that ran the story, sticking mostly with the mainstream media sites, and it's amazing how many people a) didn't see how it was offensive and b) wanted to blame the media for bringing this up. While a good size majority did think the image was offensive, the group that didn't feel it was brought up the same tired arguments many bring up when faced with racism. Oh, well I'm offended by white people being called white trash, or I'm offended by the connotation of the Wal-Mart shopper being lower class whites.

Excuse me? I'm so tired of hearing people trying to explain junk like this by comparing it to people dissing white people I'm just done. Did you go to school and learn history? Do you know what those images mean to black people? Every time I want to think we have grown away from race there are things which reinforce we haven't grown as much as we think. It's no wonder my mother and father worry that Obama, if he becomes President, he's going to get shot because white people aren't going to stand for a black President. It's just sad how bad things have gotten.