When has a presidential candidate ever before been so widely and viciously vilified by America at large?

Why, in a race that should be heralding the rumblings of a landslide democratic victory, are we embroiled in a battle for the last few independent and undecided voters as the voices that will decide the course to be taken for the next four years? 

The popular answer would be the McCain has generated enough interest to shore up more votes than expected, and that his transparent pandering to women voters, with the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate is quickly and momentously gobbling up the stragglers.

The unpopular answer is that this man in black, and therefore untrustworthy. His name sends primitive, almost superstitious fears along the spines of those who have not yet learned what it means to be truly American. They grasp for straws to justify their fears: he's a racist; he's a muslim; he has ties to radical islam. And the fears are contagious, not because they are the slightest bit plausible, but because they resonate to that remote and primitive tribalism that hides in the caves of our minds. Now the fears have a voice, and the semblance of rationality. Now the fear and the simple, brute tenet of us-against-them, finds a toehold in pseudo-facts, inflammatory pictures, and phobophobic rhetoric. 

He is not a racist, but he is black, and has worked since his youth, with impoverished blacks. He is bound to have felt their frustration and their bitterness; yet he does not share it.

He is not a muslim, though he has family ties, however old, to that religion. In a land whose principal virtues include the freedom to choose religious orientation, this should hardly be a liability. Yet, it does not matter how many times he disavows it. The haters will not believe him ... why? Because they can not afford to give up their hold on ANY reason to hate this man: if they do, they will reveal their actual fear; their actual weakness. Need I say it?

He has no ties to radical islamists. The viciousness of this lie speaks volumes to the distrust held against this man, not for his politics, but for his audacity in believing that this nation is ready for a man of African-American descent to hold the highest office in the land. It is the lowest of all the accusations leveled against him. Yet we tolerate it, because we must. We must acknowledge that there are those who are simply not ready to conquer their own fears and suspicions; haters who view all persons of color through the lens of white heritage; who tremble in their skins when a rising star speaks to the truths of this nations past, without false praise, without glossing over the injustices; liars and pseudo-intellectual thugs who will use the flag of this great nation against itself, to silence voices that speak to national responsibility, and who will color us all radical should we seek to continue the salvation of this nation and the realization of the dreams of our fathers.

This man is hated because they fear him. It's no more complicated than that.