McCain booed by his own angry supporters

John McCain has a tiger by the tail.

It is the tiger of no longer hidden cultural and racial hatred that his own campaign has stoked as polls show his chances of winning November's presidential election have slipped away.

As crowds at the rallies of McCain an VP candidate Sarah Palin have turned increasingly bold in their overt expressions of violent hatred -- with shouted incitations to violence and racial epithets greeting reporters and TV crews trying to cover the rallies as the agitated crowds spot minority members of the media and their technical crews -- McCain's position in the polls -- including those from cable channel Fox News who many of McCain supporters consider their media outlet for its own over-the-top opinion-as-reporting support for the McCain/Palin campaign -- has begun to plummet.

Today, sensing the public relations disaster that the increasingly angry and out of control crowds represent, McCain tried to tone things down -- to disturbing results. According to the San Jose Mercury News:

Late Friday, after broad criticism for not stepping in earlier, McCain tried to tamp down tempers but was booed by his own supporters when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about Obama's character, he described Obama as a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

The switch underscores the Republicans' treacherous high-wire after an inflammatory week when the McCain campaign began focusing on Obama's character and judgment.

In recent days, the campaign launched a series of searing stump speeches and ads that some experts call racially tinged. It also spills over to terrorist fears, they say. While the McCain campaign says it doesn't condone emphasizing Obama's middle name Hussein, speakers at McCain rallies have used it this week. Others point to McCain ads, which earlier called Obama "dangerously unprepared," now simply call him "dangerous'' and the constant linking of Obama to [former 60s radical turned university professor William] Ayers. This comes after months of false Internet rumors that Obama is a Muslim and not an American citizen.

The Mercury News talked to experts in political communication:

McCain campaign attacks on Obama have "gone beyond the level of code words,'' said Shanto Iyengar, Stanford University professor of communications and political science who has studied racial attitudes in elections. "I call it a racist appeal to identity. Do you want to vote for someone who doesn't look like you or have a name like yours? In America, racial identity tends to trump other forms of identity. It's the most salient basis for making the distinction between us and them."

Not every expert they talked to agreed -- particularly not those with ties to the GOP and Republican politicians who work at pl

"It's not about race, it's about getting voters to take another look at Obama "and fill in the blanks,'' said Bill Whalen, a former speech writer for Republicans and now a fellow at the Hoover Institution. McCain is hoping to take the voters' eyes off economic problems, where polls show he's weak, and move the attention to Obama's ties to Chicago associates, notably Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground which the FBI labeled a "domestic terrorist group," as well as convicted felon Antoin "Tony" Rezko and the controversial black minister the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

[...] McCain has tried to play-up Obama's association with Ayers; however, media reports have concluded the relationship was only a casual one.

But as the race hurdles to its Nov. 4 climax, political observers say these words and images will stoke fears, particularly racial ones.

"In a fear environment, what's effective is to draw on fears of racism,'' said Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media at Cal State Sacramento. Such tactics might be particularly effective if McCain wants to shore up support among conservatives and older voters in places like Florida, Virginia and Midwest swing states. And Obama, she contended, is using "code words to show McCain as rickety and old,'' unable to lead a turnaround.

The irony, she added, that for an election about change, the economic crisis may cause some voters to seek the candidate they believe is safest "when everything else is turning upside down. The fear of the different is the flip flop of change. Change has been the mantra but now people have had way too much change.''

UPDATE: The New York Times has a bit more detail on the incident, which was preceded by a harsh attack on Obama by McCain -- and after the crowd booed McCain -- followed by another harsh attack -- although McCain again later tried to calm the crowd as it turned ugly once again.

Then he added, “I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments, I will respect him.” The crowd interrupted Mr. McCain to boo, but he kept talking. “I want everyone to be respectful and let’s make sure we are, because that’s the way politics — —”

At that point, Mr. McCain was drowned out by applause.

The Times doesn't speculate on why the crowd burst into applause at that odd point -- but those who've observed such rallies know that the crowd response is sometimes, to some extent, orchestrated by campaign workers scattered throughout the venue.

UDATE 2: The oston Globe coverage adds a few more details: Supporters jeer as McCain calls Obama 'a decent person'