How proud would you be?

. . . If this were your political base for a national election?

One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

Or this englightened American voter:

Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.
"If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.

This is all real stuff from an Msnbc.com story today I really hope you will read.

We all know this stuff is out there, we saw it in our inboxes and on texts as the election heated up this fall. But what if you were going out there every day with your flag pin on, trying to get people to vote you into office, in a system in which you KNEW that some percentage of your vote (maybe as high as 30? I'll take arguments on this) was coming to you primarily becuase you were NOT in the party that was perceived as being more welcoming to African-Americans, Latinos and gays and lesbians.

Wouldnt you want to cringe, or puke, or say something really specific about how these are not your beliefs, such as Bob Dole did to the Pat Buchanan wing of the party in 1996:

''The Republican Party is broad and inclusive,'' Mr. Dole declared as he summoned the hall to a frenzy of flag-waving. ''It represents many streams of opinion and many points of view. But if there is anyone who has mistakenly attached himself to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you: Tonight this hall belongs to the party of Lincoln, and the exits, which are clearly marked, are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise.''

Courage is courage. And going along to get along, when the moral stakes are this high, is just smelly.