AN OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR JOHN McCAIN

Dear Senator McCain:

I want to believe in my heart-of-hearts that you love this country even more than you cherish the notion of a Republican presidential victory. However, if violence were to be fomented against Senator Obama on any level leading up to Election Day, November 4, even a Republican victory would prove a hollow one, void of meaning and incapable of exercising the moral leadership that will be needed to heal the irreparable rupture sure to follow within our racially polarized nation.

Our history has shown us that during times of economic hardship, racial and ethnic minorities and their leaders are susceptible to becoming targets of inflammatory rhetoric, even to the point of inciting riots and bloodshed in our nation’s streets. Today we see a vicious cancer of negative emotion spreading rapidly by the intentional efforts of the McCain/ Palin campaign, and you sir must help to surgically excise it from our body politic.

You, Senator McCain, can take charge by exerting the moral authority that so many ascribe to you, simply by firmly and consistently denouncing the hate language, race baiting, and fear mongering spewed from your supporters at Republican campaign events and the zealots using media to sew seeds of ethnic division and racial hatred.

If you, sir, were to forcefully address the nation specifically on this issue, much in the manner that Senator Obama did before a national television audience in Philadelphia last February in his speech on “Race in America,” you could go down in history as a great American healer and not a divider. Moreover, you will achieve a legacy as one of this nation's most courageous political leaders in history, whether you win or lose the presidential election. Such a bold, non-partisan act of moral clarity and leadership by you is especially needed during these times of great economic and personal insecurity

You decide. On which side of history do you choose to stand? The world is watching.


Best regards,

Dennis Day
New York New York