Update: One of the most honorable concession speeches I can remember, and a solid attempt at healing. If that was, as I strongly suspect, his swan song, McCain went out with dignity and respect.


Original comment:

As is the case with Obama, McCain is undoubtedly polarizing, and moreso since his campaign became home to so many former Bush aides and operatives who have brought their style of campaigning with them.

This is not to say that polarization is intrinsically evil, but for the long term good of the nation it is the responsibility of all activists to keep it in check. The kind of extremist language and outright hatred used by partisans on both sides in this election has reached a disturbing point. Neither side is free of guilt in this, and neither occupies some kind of moral high ground.

It is a despicable thing when it has become politically acceptable to call the opposing side anti-American and unpatriotic because they happen to disagee with you. Both sides have been guilty of that, and of other extreme language, both on the campaign trail an on this site.

I remember a particularly good review someone wrote on here back in closing days of the 2004 election. Speaking as a GOP partisan he said:

"This (becoming a united nation after partisan strife) is the responsibility of the republican/conservatives. Dems will be able to be good losers if rep/cons are gracious winners. All such responsibility now for unification of the country is on the winning party. Don't expect amicability if you are spiking the ball in their faces, in their endzone. No touchdown dances, ok? At least, not in public."

The reviewer was Eschew Obfuscation, and the same applies this election. Those people some of you are spewing hatred at? Those are your neighbors.

I don't see McCain, the man, as particularly polarizing, rather he is consciously, aggressively eschewing any and all opportunities to be polarizing.  Unlike Obama.  McCain's attacks on Obama in his speeches are quite strictly attacks on Obama's record and the economic and military plans and statements Obama has laid claim to.  His commercials have been another story but neither side has been very honorable there.  And Sarah Palin has been on the attack although Joe Biden's ridiculous comments recently have kept her more than busy with outstanding material.

And no matter how nasty the attacks against McCain have been, he has not answered in kind.  Obama appears to have enjoyed constant support from his minions regardless of how he has betrayed them AND how ugly his attacks have been.  Not so for John McCain.  His base is impatient for him to get it on, get in the gutter and get it done, the way the dems do.  He stubbornly refuses.  The polls show Obama's lead shrinking recently, even though McCain is not and has never been the "darling" of his party.  I believe that the polls are wrong again, skewed in favor of the liberal democrat, as they were four years ago, and eight years ago because the TV networks want to hear that Obama is in the lead and they argue with the pollsters (and sometimes fire them) if they are not told what they want to hear.  We'll see on November 5th. 

McCain will win this election not because he has run a great and honorable campaign or because he's a better candidate.  He is "not Obama."  And, this year, "not Obama" will win the national election.  We're not ready for trickle-up poverty.

I'm not sure he is particularly polarizing. McCain in himself comes across as someone with very little personality and nothing which immediately captures your eye (unlike Obama, who is all about 'change' and novelty). Those who are voting for him are voting more for an alternative to Obama than for his own man, and those who are voting against see him as a relatively harmless old duffer (and before you ask, I am completely aware of his quite spectacular military record).
John Kerry tried to run a campaign based on the shortcomings of (and on his status as an alternative to) his opponent, and failed miserably. McCain is attempting to do the same (overlooking the bullet in the foot that has been Sarah Palin...), and that is why he will never be president.
(reposts due to grammar)

He didn't start that way, but he's sure ended up that way. He's got to get a leash on some of his followers.

I used to have respect for this guy, and felt sorry for him when the Bush campaign in 2000 pulled such dirty tricks on him.  However, when he became the presumptive GOP Presidential candidate this year, I did much more research into his past, and as a result, became much less impressed with him than I was previously.  Like many voters, the more I learned about him, the less I liked him.  I became very aware that the mythical John McCain and the actual one bear no resemblance to one another.  I was pretty surprised at how undistinguished his military and political career have been.  I found out some very unsavory, unflattering details about his personal life.  And, once he got on the stump and started talking, I sized him up for what he is: a tired old political hack with no ideas or vision.  During the campaign. he totally avoided specifics when asked about his positions and proposed solutions to the problems, affirming that he could do it all, saying, in effect, "trust me."  And the two concrete ideas he did propose regarding healthcare and the government buying up toxic mortgages made absolutely no sense at all.  However, what really turned me off about this chump is when he started going negative, spending all his time dissing his opponent instead of stating what benefit there would be in voting for him, or how he was going to solve the nation's problems.  The absolute kicker is when I found out that he hired the same people who trashed him while working for the 2000 Bush campaign in South Carolina to do the same to Obama this time around.  So, this nimrod isn't especially polarizing.  He's just dishonest and creepy.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER  ?

Once again I'm not voting for either Socialist.  But, I'd have to say that Palin's SNL visit and Joe the Plumber are trumping, Powell's endorsement of Obama on Meet the Depressed. As far as polls go - Kerry was up by 17 points and he was way ahead in the exit polling.  Who won the 2004 election?  Update I think McCain picked up in the polls again 
Update
By showing the character and ties to the man.  That is all fair game in politics.  When Senator Obama wouldn't visit a Military Hospital in Germany because cameras weren't allowed.  That speaks volumes of Obama's character.

By the time he had locked up the nomination (months before the convention) McCain was selected for the very fact that he wouldn't be polarizing.  He was seen as the only hope to slide up the middle and the only guy in the pack who could sufficiently distance the party from the previous eight years. 

All of the other candidates came from some corner of the coalition that Bush had assembled to win in 2000 and particularly '04.  Those factions contributed to the win and those factions now wanted power  But the election was going to come at the very lowest ebb of the Bush Presidency and Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee et al came from bases too narrow for general acceptance.  If the Republicans were going to succeed at distancing themselves from Bush, they would have to morph into a populist party.  Come the Maverick. 

And it might have worked.  It could easily have worked if Hilary, very polarizing herself, had been the opposition.  She could have rallied the right in opposition to her candidacy almost as well Ronald Reagan rallied the right by looking like Ike in a rug.  But next to Obama, McCain looked old and tired and the early polling showed him to be in trouble. 

The first attempt to infuse some life in the ticket was the addition of Palin, originally pitched as a carrot to the disaffected Clintonites but when that failed she was remolded into a ray of hope for the far right.  It had early positive results but ultimately ran aground when she opened her mouth. It also made McCain look like a skirt chasing old man to have to share the stage with Sarah and Cindy all the time.   

Taking a beating on all fronts, the McCain team had to fall back to the disaster plan, the tried and true tactics of the Rove era, innuendo, guilt by association, attacks by arms length dogs.

Sadly the guy who six months ago looked like the last decent man in Washington now is running around making wild-eyed accusations that his opponent is un-American, a friend to terrorists, a dangerous pinko and on and on.  It's desperate and un-worthy of him.

I guess if you liked Germany in 1940 you would like Obama too.

This was not always the case.  But John has accepted the role of polarizing figure in chief without looking back.  The ends justify the means, no matter how venal, no matter how divisive, seems to be his new credo.