That's the way McCain looked to me last week as he confronted the corrosive effects of the acid fueling some of his more rabid supporters.
It was crystallized in the comment of a woman named Gayle Quinnell, who prefaced her question by saying she was afraid of Obama.
"He's an Arab" she said.
"No, ma'am," McCain said as he took the microphone from her hands.
"He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just have disagreements with."
It was the culmination of a week when McCain was forced to douse flames he and his campaign had been fanning.
In Wisconsin, McCain seemed shocked by supporters who shouted "terrorist" and "off with his head" at the mention of Barack Obama's name.
"You do not have to be scared" of an Obama presidency he said in response to supporters who say they fear what will happen if Obama is elected.
This level of fear arises from something beyond the negative ads both campaigns run to distort each other's record. The vitriol McCain is trying to dilute springs from a type of character assassination that shouldn't be tolerated in a presidential campaign.
It starts with McCain's more measured tones in ads that imply that Obama has a secret agenda. What McCain won't say is said by Gov. Sarah Palin, who accuses Obama of "palling around with terrorists."
Hiding out in the bushes are people who dispense the "inside information" that Obama was raised in a school that teaches Muslim youth to hate America, that he does not salute our flag or national anthem.
Of course, those are unauthorized and anonymous. But right behind them are GOP elected officials who have started emphasizing Obama's middle name "Hussein" to prompt comparisons to Saddam Hussein.
Then there were those election officials in Rensselaer County, N.Y., who "overlooked" a "typo" on 300 absentee ballots they sent out mistakenly listing the Democratic candidate as Barack "Osama."
