"As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign.  What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history.  Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

"During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate.  George Wallace never threw a bomb.  He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights.  Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

"As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.  They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy.  We can do better.  The American people deserve better."

McCain issued this response:

"Congressman John Lewis' comments represent a character attack against Governor Sarah Palin and me that is shocking and beyond the pale. The notion that legitimate criticism of Senator Obama's record and positions could be compared to Governor George Wallace, his segregationist policies and the violence he provoked is unacceptable and has no place in this campaign. I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I've always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track.

"I call on Senator Obama to immediately and personally repudiate these outrageous and divisive comments that are so clearly designed to shut down debate 24 days before the election. Our country must return to the important debate about the path forward for America."

Obama's campaign spokesman stopped short of apologizing for the remarks:

"Senator Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies.  But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for President of the United States 'pals around with terrorists.'  As Barack Obama has said himself, the last thing we need from either party is the kind of angry, divisive rhetoric that tears us apart at a time of crisis when we desperately need to come together.  That is the kind of campaign Senator Obama will continue to run in the weeks ahead."

The Hartford Courant reports:

"Same-sex couples won the right to marry in Connecticut in an historic ruling by the Supreme Court today.

Citing the equal protection clause of the state constitution, the justices ruled that civil unions were discriminatory. In a 4-3 decision released at 11:30 a.m., the majority wrote that the state's "understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection."

"Is John McCain really serious about questioning Barack Obama's association with William Ayers?

The evidence suggests he is not.

To truly drive Ayers into the public conversation, to trick what they consider an irredeemably biased press corps into biting, McCain has three vehicles gassed up and ready to go.

(1) He could put lots of money into an Ayers ad -- video press releases don't cut it.
(2) He could devote a stump speech to Obama's associations and Obama's associations only
(3) He could mention Ayers in a debate.

So far, McCain has done none of those things.  On top of doing none of those things, he has declared Obama's association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright as off-limits."

The Connecticut Senator has been out front denouncing the "companies that form the foundation of our financial markets," for "their insatiable appetite for risk." He has also decried "reckless, careless and sometimes unscrupulous actors in the mortgage lending industry" and he has proclaimed that "American taxpayers deserve to know how we arrived at this moment." To that end, we propose he take the stand -- under oath.

Former Countrywide Financial loan officer Robert Feinberg says Mr. Dodd knowingly saved thousands of dollars on his refinancing of two properties in 2003 as part of a special program the California mortgage company had for the influential. He also says he has internal company documents that prove Mr. Dodd knew he was getting preferential treatment as a friend of Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide's then-CEO.

"... the estimated $300 billion tab essentially gets transferred to taxpayers, among the funding already provided by the bailout bill -- a proposal that may rile not only fiscal conservatives, but also struggling homeowners who have worked to keep up their mortgage payments.

"The guy who works two jobs and struggles to actually pay his mortgage is penalized. He would be better off under this plan to just quit paying his mortgage," Lewis said. "And this fundamentally goes against a lot of conservative principles and individual responsibility." 

...

But it remains to be seen if the Arizona senator's latest roll of the dice will pay off.

"Liberals who might actually be inclined to support a welfare check such as this are already going to vote for Barack Obama, and conservatives, who view this as irresponsible and even apostasy, are turned off by it," Lewis said. "This is both bad policy and bad politics."

... If history is any predictor, we are all likely to in for a few surprises on Election Day. 

Elections rarely play out exactly as we think they might.  As such, I think there are two interesting possibilities to consider.  These are by no means the only two possibilities, but they are two which I believe are, at least, plausible ...

1. An Obama Landslide: An amazing number of new voters are registered to vote this year. This is happening, for example, in states like North Carolina.  Are we entering a new paradigm which would finally prove existing "likely voter" models to be entirely obsolete?  If so, it is possible Obama could win by a dramatic landslide that exceeds anything we would imagine...

2.  "Dewey Beats Truman":  Remember the New Hampshire Primary?  Obama was winning in the polls by double digits.  He had all the energy and all the visible ground troops (I was in the state and can vouch for this).  Yet -- defying all the polls, pundits, and predictions -- Hillary Clinton won.  What if this scenario plays out in a couple of states such as, say, Pennsylvania and Ohio?  It doesn't have to happen nationally -- depending on how things go, flipping one big state could make the difference.  It's not hard to imagine that if the so-called "Bradley effect" actually exists, that it would manifest itself in the Rust Belt.

Dean Reynolds of CBS has written a very interesting piece contrasting the inner-workings of the two campaigns.  I found this to ring especially true:

The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps. When he is available, John McCain is friendly and loquacious. Obama holds news conferences, but seldom banters with the reporters who've been following him for thousands of miles around the country. Go figure.

The first-ever “digital natives” – that is how Children of Jihad author Jared Cohen described the generation currently coming of age, during an interview with me yesterday to promote the paperback release of his book.  Having grown up in a thoroughly wired world, today’s young people are turning to the internet -- not merely using the internet for communication, but for expression, identity, recreation, and a host of other purposes.

To many Americans, text messages and Facebook accounts may seem like just quirky features of Generation Y, but in the developing world, they are drastically reshaping the fabric of society.  Cohen should know; this young Jewish-American Rhodes scholar defied foreign governments and travelled to hostile Middle Eastern nations -- in order to interview young people (some of whom were members of terrorist organizations) – for Children of Jihad.  In some nations, Cohen explains, new technology is helping awaken civil rights in places where they previously did not exist. In Egypt, for example, a national student strike was organized via Facebook. In Saudi Arabia, thousands of women anonymously signed a Facebook petition calling for their right to drive a car, and the largest anti-terrorist demonstration in Columbia’s history was touched off by a Facebook group targeting the communist F.A.R.C. rebels.

To be sure, new communication methods are also being used by violent extremists, setting up the potential for an online battle of ideologies. Radical groups like Hezbollah not only release videos, but also target leisure activities such as video games. For instance, a “first-person shooter” game can easily be reprogrammed so that, as Cohen put it, “instead of shooting werewolves, you shoot Jews.” So, the question for America is how to handle the communication explosion. Should we try to restrict access to extremist activity or encourage even more development to ensure that oppressed people have the ability to organize?

For Cohen, the answer is clear: never question new technology. “I don’t want to miss the internet like we missed that cassette tape,” he said. In the 1970s, America was hesitant to encourage cassette tapes for fear that they would be used to market Soviet ideology to the masses. “But, at the end of the day, what was the first instance where the cassette tape was used for political reasons?” he asked. The answer? “It was Ayatollah Khomeini orchestrating the Iranian Revolution in 1979 from Paris.”  Essentially, if we don’t figure out how to exploit technology, our enemies will.

Now, there are certainly dangers for online freedom fighters. Bloggers have been arrested and women have died in honor killings for signing up on Facebook. However, Cohen noted that anonymous internet activism is far less likely to result in punishment than overt activism in the streets. As for the threat of online jihadis, he says, “they’re never going to win in that space,” and that he would “rather them be in that space than be in a quiet community, because at least online they’re doing it in front of everybody and can be watched.”

He also noted that new developments make it easier for American youth to interact with their counterparts outside the free world. Such interaction could be essential in a forum where Western governments can no longer air their messages as easily as they could through Cold War organizations like Radio Free Europe. Instead, the web provides the capability for millions of young Americans to become what Cohen called “diplomats”, showing young Iranians or Saudis what it means to live under freedom – from the comfort of their keyboard. However, he was more hesitant to speculate on how the energies of America’s youth could be channeled in such a direction. He hinted that the subject might be discussed in a future book, but strongly indicated that he did not think such an undertaking could be effectively managed by the government.

The jury may still be out regarding exactly how to use the internet to fight extremism. However, Cohen sternly warned that we cannot simply put the issue on the back burner, because our enemies make it a top priority. “I can guarantee you, and I know for a fact, that groups like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and others are already active in this forum,” he said, “I know that because, in my meetings with them and interviews with them, they told me. Hezbollah would talk to me about how they, you know, send Hezbollah guys into internet cafes to teach kid how to use internet on there terms.” Personally, I found that comment rather chilling, and it shows that ordinary Americans cannot simply assume that that someone else is fighting the war against online extremists. In a world of Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and unlimited text messaging, we have the ability to fight terrorism from our kitchen tables, and shame on us if we don’t take advantage of that power.    

Townhall’s Adam Brickley contributed to this post.