The scariest thing I've ever seen

[Sean]

Originally Posted by cacophony

you could argue that rally attendees represent a small portion of the total republican voter base. and if the bigoted attendees make up only a portion of that portion, you do end up with a "fringe element" responsible for the offensiveness.

we have to be careful not to do the same thing that happened when hillary didn't get the nomination. it was easy to look at the hillary rallies and say, "wow a lot of women are angry and will vote for mccain if she doesn't get the nod." but in reality that very visible, very vocal group turned out to be an itty bitty minority and most of her supporters won't defect after all.

just because these people are visible and vocal, we can't automatically decide they represent the whole.

Well said. I guess the point that I'm concerned about though is that something seems amiss here, and it's probably one of two things. Either the "fringe" group is actually larger than what we anticipated and larger than McCain would have us believe, or the "fringe" group is being whipped into a greater frenzy than we anticipated thanks to the harsh tone of rallies being held by Palin, and to a lesser extent, McCain himself. Or it could even be some of both.

But either way, my concerns were summed up well by my brother when I was talking to him on the phone yesterday. He said that it seems like the VP picks this year are probably more meaningful than they've been in a loooong time, or possibly ever. In McCain's case, it's an important consideration due to his age and repeated brushes with one of the deadliest forms of cancer out there. In Obama's case, it's because the groups getting most fired up right now seem like the kind of folks who might own a bunch of guns and be willing to take a shot at him if he wins.

So while I agree that it may indeed be no more than a "fringe" group, I'm afraid it's an extremely dangerous fringe group. As King of Snake said in another thread, the growing sentiment being seeded by McCain's campaign about Obama is that "he's black, he's a muslim, a terrorist lover AND a communist all at the same time! 'KILL HIM!'". Only it's worse than that. It seems that some are even starting to believe Obama himself is a terrorist, and that he's an actual socialist...which I assume will probably be viewed by the "fringe" element as just one tiny step from being a pinko commie that needs to be stopped.