Obama's win; McCain's loss

It's a quarter to ten on election day eve, and it looks like Obama's going to win. The Right has already been positioning itself to attribute Obama's win to an anti-Bush backlash, saying "no Republican could've won" in the current economic climate. It's been sad to watch Senator McCain expend his political capital and, to some extent, his reputation, by engaging in an exceedingly ugly campaign. His choice of Sarah Palin perturbed the thinking Republicans, who began distancing themselves from McCain and Bush. Their reward was, predictably, approbrium from the faithful. But the accusations of being a socialist, an "Arab", a Muslim, and a terrorist appealed to the irrational Republicans, and the hate evident in McCain's hand-chosen audiences eroded McCain's image as man in control. The Republican establishment is counting on persuading the voters that Democrats as tax-and-spend big-government types, and the Republicans as small government, fiscally responsible types. It looks like, finally, the voters might not buy it.
It's troubling how the war vanished from the public debate when the stock market collapsed. Like a child distracted by a shiny object, their own perceived self-interest commanded their attention. But long after the economy recovers, the war will still be with us. And it will have spread.