Sarah Palin, the semi-illiterate governor of Alaska and the Vice Presidential pick of Senator John McCain, has been making the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Her shrilly and mangled hate-filled demagoguery has been calling on hate-mongers, extremists, racists and fringe lunatics of the right, in coded language, to attack Senator Barack Obama, the democratic candidate for president.

In one of such code, Palin shouted at a rally, “Who is Obama? He does not see America as we do!” Translation: Obama is a black man and has a foreign sounding name. The largely white Palin audience usually goes wild, with some calling Obama “terrorist,” “traitor,” “kill him!” In fact, at a rally in Clearwater, Fla., Palin almost incited the mob to murder and bodily harm against an unidentified TV cameraman, who happened to be black. As Palin incited the crowd with statements like “Obama is a friend of domestic terrorists” and for misleading her listeners that Obama has accused the U.S. military of “bombing villages and innocent civilians in Afghanistan,” a section of the crowd called the cameraman: “Sit down boy!” a racist remark that was not condemned by the governor from Wasilla.

McCain, the so-called maverick, African Abroad USA has found has joined his running mate in the gutter-of-desperation politics. As McCain poll numbers go south in the key battleground states, he has resorted to using a combination of insult and coded racial messages as his campaign slogan in the hope that he can turn his sinking presidential

campaign around.

African Abroad USA notes that instead of McCain’s former “Straight talk express,” it is now “that one,” “Obama does not understand,” and so on. The vicious campaign has gone to such extent that certain members of McCain’s audience, who have uttered threatening words like “kill him,” are now under investigation by the authorities.

Indeed, at one of McCain’s rallies in Florida, a uniformed Sheriff actually introduced the Republican contender and in a threat-filled voice called Obama by his middle name “Hussein.” That Sheriff is now under investigation.

It has become obvious that McCain will not contest the presidency on the crashing U.S. economy but on character assassination and appeal to fringe elements in American society.

African Aboard USA is of the view that negative campaign works in previous U.S. elections in 2000 and 2004 that gave President George W. Bush victory over Senators Al Gore and John Kerry. While we are happy that swift-boat attacks politics of destruction has not dented Obama’s numbers in the polls, there is cause for worry as the campaign draws to an end. There are too many in the United States who are ready to vote for B- or C-rated candidates because of cultural issues like the candidates position on abortion, gay marriage or have a good Ivy League education, which is viewed unfavorably among some blue-collar Americans.

Such voting patterns, based on trivial cultural issues, produced President Bush over Gore, which has in turn led to many policy misadventures like the Iraq war that has wasted almost 4,000 American lives, not counting the hundred of billions of dollars wasted on the war effort. We are not even talking of the Wall Street collapse, which has now triggered the worst financial crisis that America has ever faced since the Great Depression. All this is the result Bush dubious wins over more competent candidates.

African Abroad USA hopes that on Election Day, Nov. 4, Americans will have learned its lessons. We also hope that the biting economic crisis of today will inform voters to reject the politics of division, hate, cultural wars and negativity. After watching two debates, so far, African Abroad USA notes that Obama has been focusing on the issues, like how to fix the economy. But McCain and Palin have been waging the most negative and slimy cultural war campaign imaginable in the history of U.S. presidential politics.

It is obvious that McCain has no solution on how to move the U.S. economy out of the quagmire. For this reason, African Abroad USA strongly endorses Senator Obama for President of the United States. African immigrants, who are eligible to vote, are strongly urged to go to the polls and vote for Obama.