Because there's nothing left in the Republican deck but the fear and loathing cards

Playing on fear and loathing is the only thing that the Republicans have left in their arsenal. A party that is morally and ethically bankrupt, as well as having been dead wrong on policy so long that there is nothing left but the smoking ruins of what they believed was Ronald Reagan's shining city on a hill, they have nothing left but their lust for continued power, the better to stuff more lucre into their pockets before the peasants come with their torches and pitchforks.

So the royalists at Camp Maverick plans to spend the next month picking up horse manure from the cobblestone streets and throwing it at Barack Obama in the hope that enough of it will stick to allow them to continue to pillage the country:

Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.

With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain's team has decided that its emphasis on the senator's biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan's campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.

"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Being so aggressive has risks for McCain if it angers swing voters, who often say they are looking for candidates who offer a positive message about what they will do. That could be especially true this year, when frustration with Washington politics is acute and a desire for specifics on how to fix the economy and fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is strong.

Robert Gibbs, a top Obama adviser, dismissed the new McCain strategy. "This isn't 1988," he said. "I don't think the country is going to be distracted by the trivial." He added that Obama will continue to focus on the economy, saying that Americans will remain concerned about the country's economic troubles even as the Wall Street crisis eases somewhat.

I'd love to believe that it won't be enough. I'd love to believe that there are enough Americans who recognize that John McCain is up to his eyeballs in the redistribution of wealth from the middle class to those who already have more than they can spend in a lifetime. I'd love to believe that there are people in this country who are unwilling to sacrifice their children's future on the altar of racial prejudice. I'd love to believe that the woman on this morning's Good Morning America who said that she likes Sarah Palin because "she seems like someone you could sit at the kitchen table with and have a conversation" is an anomaly. I'd love to believe that there are enough Americans who aren't so narcissistic that they need a president who looks like them or who can pretend they are middle class when they have ten houses, or are as ignorant as they; that they want a president who is gifted and has leadership skills.

But American history since 1980 shows us that in a twist of the words of the Gordon Gekko character in Wall Street, fear is good. Fear works.

I hope to God it doesn't work this year. Because this country will not survive the Palin/McCain (sic) administration.