KEY POINTS:
Say it ain't so, John.
Good Senator John McCain, for a smart man, why have you suddenly made such stupid choices in your last innings? Tradition has it that in the final sprint of a US presidential campaign, candidates who want to play dirty dish out their "October
Surprise".
You're dishing all right, and from you, a respected senator, it's one hell of a surprise. Last week, in a nice little slimy twist, your minions started referring to Obama by his full name, Barack Hussein Obama.
Tell me, John Sidney McCain, are you going to throw in Obama's US passport number, too, just to make sure voters really know the man they've seen daily on the national stage for almost 20 gruelling months now?
Because I know you are too good a man to imply that Obama is somehow foreign or Muslim - two fear-mongering words that now sadly equate to a tick in the Republican column.
Just as I know you are too worldly not to imply that even if Obama had been a Muslim instead of the Christian that he is, his religion should not be respected and honoured too.
All you have to do is stand up and make it clear.
You are better than this.
I know you have accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists" only because your running mate meant to say "60s radical" and got the decades confused by 40 years. Happens to the best of us. What's a little confused incendiary language among friends?
No matter that the 60s radical did his illegal actions when Obama was 8 years old, and that Obama publicly denounced it. People can't change in 40 years, or become respected university professors and board members of conservative charity trusts, or be voted "citizen of the year" by the city of Chicago.
That part of Bill Ayers' resume doesn't quite work as well for you in this 11th hour.
But what is inexcusable - morally and politically - is watching the fired-up, angry crowd at your rallies yell out, "Terrorist!", "Traitor!" and, most frighteningly, "Kill him!" without one word of admonishment from either you or your running mate until the press jumped down your throat this week.
You know the fear that every American feels with the prospect of angry, racially charged division in America directed toward one man. Tell your supporters outright; you don't shop in hate.
You chose a tactic that just solidified the extremes of your base people who wouldn't have voted for Obama anyway - and alienated those you need most in the undecided middle. And guess what? New poll numbers show voters don't like greasy politics either.
The most hopeful moments I saw in the last snoozer presidential debate was watching that damned worm wiggle down to the ground whenever either candidate went negative or mean. That same worm woke up and rose upward whenever either man actually talked about solutions.
Hallelujah - voters get it.
Just about the time when you think people care more about Sarah Palin's red high heels than her political acumen, or which candidate Bill Clinton actually does want to win to better position his wife in 2012, you get kicked in the face with something right for a change.
At the real end of this campaign, voters want answers. They want to hear what could be. They know how to discard the garbage. Nobody expects politics to be pretty, but how dumb is it to embrace the ineffectually ugly?
You are losing significantly in polls on the economy, a word even scarier today than "terrorist".
Voters say they trust Obama over you on solving US financial problems by a margin of 16 points, according to a Newsweek poll. Trying to turn voters' heads away from the giant bear in the room just makes it look like you're running backwards.
Your commercials now ask, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" The only problem is you are a year too late with that question. Hillary went down this road months ago, armed with as much dirt as she could find - and it wasn't enough.
In a strange little twist of irony this week, when former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson was asked if he was happy about McCain's campaign, the Republican replied, "No," then added, "I don't know who he is."
I don't want to see a good man go down because he saw his road to victory paved with bombs instead of bridges. What voters really ask themselves when they finally step into that polling booth is, "Who is the better man?"
How are you going to answer that in 20 days, Senator McCain?