Bipolar Campaign

I cannot understand the lack of forethought within the McCain campaign. A campaign that has set Sarah Palin's mouth on "overdrive," with accusations painting Obama as supportive to terrorists vomiting from her face. A campaign that would obviously deny any responsibility for instigating the hatred of Americans for Obama, partly because McCain has suggested his supporters be "respectful" towards Obama.
How does this work, though. As the vice presidential candidate on McCain's ticket, Palin takes direction from McCain. Her attacks are not the result of her own planning, but of a strategy conceived by the campaign itself. So, as McCain calls Obama a "decent" American from one side of his mouth, from the other side, he is telling Palin to assault Obama's patriotism and religious affiliations. Honestly, I think that McCain is either extremely bipolar, or extremely desperate to win.
Although, McCain is indeed desperate to find any issue that he can use to become elected, he is alternating between his need to be president and the harm that can befall this nation through his inciting some of my fellow idiots [not you, of course] towards hate and, its ultimate outcome, violence. I see McCain as being smart enough to see that his current strategy requires that he must continue to fan the flames of hate, or lose the support of his most radical supporters. At the same time, those of us that would vote for a candidate because of their ideas, rather than voting for their party, are sitting at home alienated from McCain and his ideas, remembering the promise of a clean campaign. What was it McCain said about five months ago- something about the American people realizing that a candidate using this divisive tactic "has no vision of the future, or way to articulate it." Well said Senator McCain, but what happened? Why did you start down this road if you were not going to continually increase your message of difference and hate?
It is not that I am surprised by what has happened this election year. It was expected, and this is the problem that politics in America has. No one believes politicians. Whenever we discover that the person we voted for will not keep their campaign promises, a little part of government's legitimacy falls away. It begins to make people feel that the election process, as well as democracy as a whole, is a sham.
It hurts me to talk this way, but it needs to said. I am hopeful that whoever wins the election will follow through with their declarations of change. If they do not, I can already hear the big chunk of legitimacy falling from our belief in government. This is severe, indeed, when we consider how much legitimacy the government has left, especially after Bush.