And by that, I mean that the repetition of the name will get to the point where it’s drained of all meaning, but is just a bell whistle to extract a Pavlovian hate response towards Obama from right wingers. That sort of toxic wingnuttery is exactly the sort of thing that tends to turn off middle of the road people, and so I find myself a bit baffled as to why McCain/Palin are ramping it up. Are they hoping that people will dread another eight years of black helicopter nuts and wacky conspiracy theories and will give into the terrorists who use stupidity as their weapon, electing McCain to get relief? I doubt it---the “OMG Ayers-Foster-black-helicopters!” set looks childish in the face of our economic crisis, and anyway, Republicans look guilty by association. But the tenor of the Republican campaign rallies has turned so ugly, so far to the right, that this is beyond guilt by association. This is McCain giving a sloppy kiss to the crazies. What could they possibly be hoping to accomplish with this?
Theories:
McCain has just lost his shit. The evidence for this is that he’s the kind of person who loses his shit all the time. Egged on by Palin, it’s possible that McCain is just going to gorge himself on hatred if he can’t win. Standing before an angry mob that will turn violent on your behalf the second that you say the word probably feels good. However, it was clear in the debates that the lines that McCain and Palin both thought would just kill went over like rocks with the non-wingnut audience. Is being immersed in wingnuttery making them forget most Americans are not wingnuts?