I’ve been refraining from posting political stuff because I’m sure people prefer to consume it on their own terms.  But this was just too fascinating of a moment and it happened in Minnesota to boot.

At a campaign stop in Lakeville earlier this evening, John McCain finally tried to undue the vitriol that has been bubbling to the surface of his support over the past week.  TPM has a good interpretation of the events. Basically, Nate Silver’s analysis that Obama is “scraping the bottom of the barrel” of undecideds has become palpable this week. First, Palin said Obama has been “palling around” with terrorists, then McCain switched 100% of his ads to the message of ‘Fear Obama’. Since Obama has been steadily sucking up all the undecideds since the economic downturn, all that’s left to populate the McCain rallies are the right-wing die-hards, i.e the 20-30% of Americans that would never budge on Bush’s approval ratings. Roused by the fear rhetoric, McCain’s supporters have been taking over the rallies over the past couple days by asking paranoid questions and yelling things like “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!”

That’s all backstory to today. In this perfect storm of political weirdness, what has emerged is the most fascinating and heartrending political moment in recent history. This is really the culmination of a decades-old culture war and neo-Rovism by Steve Schmidt, along with about a thousand other bizarre by-products of Americana:

Taken earlier this evening from a Lakeville, MN rally, this is a stunning change in tone for McCain. There have been many turning-points throughout this election season, but I think this signifies a tangible start to his campaign’s collapse. Which is kind of sad because it’s the first glimpse of the real McCain–the way we used to remember him–in a long time. Certainly not since he sold his soul to a devil of sorts:

Sullivan’s quote for the day:

I don’t know if you know this. John McCain is looking for someone for vice president who has more economic expertise than he does. So congratulations to all of you, you’re on the short list. -John Kerry

Is John Kerry going to pull an Al Gore and actually become amiable post-campaign?