Thank God He Lost

I've been chided for being ungenerous, unduly harsh to McCain in his concession. I still don't see it that way.

John McCain ran a very dangerous, very dirty campaign. His campaign was tinged with racism, no question about it. Visible minorities in the United States had no doubt about that. McCain did just about everything that resonated with the Republican "base" that remains anchored firmly in the white vote from the slave states.

Here's a question. Imagine what America might look like this morning had McCain won. Try to imagine what non-white Americans would have made of a "rust belt/sun belt" victory. I think a McCain victory would have been a huge setback in race relations in America. McCain could have left America more divided than Bush ever did.

That is the campaign John McCain chose to run and he did it against the urging of moderate Republicans, the very group that now inherits the job of restoring their party's integrity. He joined the same people he rebuked in 2000, he became one of them. Because he joined them he couldn't find issues that resonated with decent America so he resorted to smear politics, a stench that would have been everywhere this morning had McCain won.

John McCain campaigned under the motto "Country First." Too bad he didn't mean it.