Happy Halloween: Fear-Mongering from the Left and the Right and a Liberal’s Broomstick for Sarah Palin

Photo by V. Bergman

Ellen Goodman takes note in her column today that we’re celebrating Halloween this Friday, just five days before the 2008 presidential election. She writes:

“HAVE YOU NOTICED that the spookiest colors of the season are not orange and black but red and blue? As Halloween slips into Election Day, the race for the White House has scared more grown-ups than any trip to the haunted house.”

Goodman continues:

“With all the infighting in the coven around the maverick and the fair maiden, it's tempting to call the McCain campaign the Gang That Couldn't Fly a Broomstick Straight.

“But the striking thing is not how the Republicans are trying to scare undecided voters. It's how spooked the most committed Democrats are.”

I’ve been a fan of Goodman for years, frequently welcoming her usually wise and supportive words to women fighting the never-ending battle against sexism and misogyny in our culture. But her comparison of the McCain camp to a witch’s coven unforgivably names Sarah Palin a witch. Thus Goodman has allied herself with the media en masse that launched its misogynist witch hunt the day the Alaska governor first set foot on the national stage.

And speaking of fear-mongering, I’ll mention here the continuous liberal rant against the McCain-Palin ticket that a GOP victory in 2008 guarantees the immediate overthrow of Rove v. Wade. The illogic of this charge is well articulated in a recent post by Marc Rubin along with a list of other fears the Obama camp has been using in its campaign to spook the electorate.

Some of us don’t spook that easily, whether the fear-mongering is coming from the Left or the Right. But for those Democrats quaking in their boots at the prospect of yet another defeat - despite the party’s obvious advantages this time around – my experience last night indicates some of their nervousness is warranted.

When the phone rang, I turned the volume down on the news program I was watching to hear the caller identify herself as a McCain supporter. A recent defector from the Democratic Party, I was momentarily caught off guard by this unexpected call from the GOP. Recovering myself, I explained that due to Obama’s and the DNC’s passive response to the sexist trashing of Hillary Clinton in the primary and the subsequent sexist assault on Sarah Palin in the general election campaign, I had decided to vote “present” in November.

Turns out my caller was also a disaffected Hillary Clinton supporter with whom I commiserated for a few minutes; it’s no wonder the Democrats are running scared.