I have to say, the past week has made me feel genuinely sad for John McCain. Watching him try to calm his supporters yesterday, I could clearly see a decent and honest man who’s lost control of his campaign in ways that he’s not comfortable. What’s the old saying — when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you? McCain is a man who looked into the abyss, and he’s learned that it’s pretty damn hard to come back from it.

As I’ve written in the past, there was a time when I admired him tremendously, and I still think he would have made a good president in 2000. But eight years has changed him, and he’s thrown his lot in with the same people who so savagely tore him down in 2000. As I’ve written before, I don’t think he has the judgment or temperament to deal with the many crises at hand. He thinks with his gut (or, charitably, his heart), and doesn’t think things through before he makes a decision. Case in point, Sarah Palin, suspending his campaign, etc. He doesn’t think about the big picture — he responds to day-to-day tactics, but is not disciplined enough to have an broader strategy. McCain’s approach is to win battles without thinking about the overall war he’s waging. Obama is the opposite — which is why his supporters tend to freak out with each tactical loss. But Obama’s team looks at the big picture, and it’s an approach that has worked well for them so far.

I know that some — including friends of this blog — are seriously troubled by William Ayers, and Obama’s association with him serving on a board, as well as having taken money from him at a fundraiser in one of his earlier campaigns. I understand that — and they’re right, if McCain was demonstrably close to Eric Rudolph or Timothy McVeigh, I would be outraged. But William Ayers is neither of those two men — he has reformed, he is not actively terrorizing this country, though I’m sure some of my conservative friends would argue that he’s terrorizing his students.

Writes William C. Ibershof, the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen:

As the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen in the 1970s (I was then chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of Michigan and took over the Weathermen prosecution in 1972), I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.

Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.

Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago.

I do take issue with the statement in your news article that the Weathermen indictment was dismissed because of “prosecutorial misconduct.” It was dismissed because of illegal activities, including wiretaps, break-ins and mail interceptions, initiated by John N. Mitchell, attorney general at that time, and W. Mark Felt, an F.B.I. assistant director.

Now, it’s fair to question Obama’s judgment about his association with Ayers, but knowing someone is not the same as endorsing that person’s views, or supporting their causes. However, it’s that guilt by association the McCain campaign has been pounding for the past two weeks to the effect of alienating independent voters who see through it as a diversion, and bringing the Republican base’s anger to a boil. Even people who disagree with Obama’s association with Ayers should recognize that no major party would ever select a traitor or terrorist as its presidential nominee. The people who believe that must think that Democrats are either stupid, treacherous, or both.

I’ve read Obama’s book and studied the man extensively — there’s nothing there that would suggest that he’s been secretly plotting to bring down the country. I view his life — even his early childhood in Indonesia — as an asset to the country. Reading his first memoir, one gets a sense of Obama as a man, warts and all. It’s as honest a book as I’ve ever read by a politician, which is probably because Obama was still a law student at Harvard when he wrote it.

A week ago, I naively wrote that the Presidential election would not lead to violence, but after watching some of these McCain rallies I’m not so sure. The McCain campaign, in a desperate attempt to reverse their slide in the polls has pulled out the “risk” card, by saying that Obama is risky, insinuating that he has dark designs for the country. Frankly, it’s absurd — the man is a constitutional scholar, a college professor and a legislator. But the Republican party has whittled itself down to its raw base, and many of those who remain are inclined to believe just about anything about a Democrat. And seem willing to do anything about it.

This is dangerous territory we’re in — McCain is very likely going to lose. And in the process of trying to turn things around, his short-term tactics of smearing his opponent have inflamed some of his supporters into thinking that if they can’t win the election fairly, then maybe they should try something a little more drastic to ensure the outcome they’re looking for. This is not at all good for the GOP brand — to be associated with violent extremists. Fury — full-throated fury — does not play well to mainstream Americans. It’s bad marketing, no one wants an angry leader, or an angry party. Howard Dean collapsed because of this, as did George Wallace and Barry Goldwater. Americans want someone who they see as steady, strong and in control of the crisis at hand. It’s why Bush got so much good will following his 9/11 speech — because people felt like they were in good hands (though feeling and reality are two different things).

I am a partisan Democrat, but I believe very strongly in the two-party system. We need two viable political parties in America (preferably more), and watching the collapse of the GOP as a cohesive party with ideas and policies to promote, while a victory for people like Kos, who are already pissing on the Grand Old Party’s corpse, is a bad thing for the country. As much as the GOP tried to destroy the left over the past eight years, there is a need in this country for a political opposition. But today’s today’s GOP sounds a lot more like say the Constitution Party than it does a mainstream political operation — if it continues to behave like this, it will lose all credibility with all but it’s most core supporters.

And that’s the tragedy of John McCain. The man who made his career on bipartisanship and honor, the man who convinced many Democrats and independents to back him in 2000, has resorted to attacks on his opponent’s character as his exclusive vehicle for attaining the presidency. In the process, he may very well take credit for having destroyed his own party, running one of the most negative campaigns in history and destroying his own legacy. Even if he wins, McCain will have no goodwill at all from the Democratic congressional majority — the bipartisanship he once heralded will be impossible.

The Republican Party, as much as I disagree with it, pulled itself out of permanent minority status and dominated the country for the last third of the 20th Century. There’s much to admire in what they accomplished and even Democratic activists acknowledge it. But in the past month, it has turned into the angry caricature that many on the left always believed it to be. I always expected the pendulum to swing against them, I just never expected them to be crushed by it.