It is beginning to get ugly.

The hysterical and sexist attacks are mounting as Sarah Palin and her family are being maligned.

Did you know that her husband, Todd Palin, once ran a stop sign and was ticketed? Imagine that! Additionally, he was cited on another occasion for operating a vehicle on public property that was set aside as a wildlife refuge.

That type of occurrence is routine in Alaska where paved roads are few and far between and the frontier is not always well marked. What is even more damning is the fact that he was given a DUI ticket a quarter of a century ago. Todd Palin was twenty years old at the time.

How low can the smear tactics go? Will we next learn that a member of the Palin family has had to pay library fines on overdue books? Not any books, mind you, but inflammatory racist tracts that have been banned by many library and school districts like Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The Democrats had no problem with nominating a presidential candidate whose sole military experience was acting as the Commander in Chief of the Arkansas National Guard in 1992, but someone who heads the Alaska National Guard is now deemed unqualified 2008 for lacking military experience? Give me a break!

Clearly, the lunatic fringe attacks upon Palin’s daughter, Bristol, are beyond the pale. After circulating such gutter level rumors for several days over the long Labor Day weekend,

Commissar Barack Obama called for a cease fire. Amazingly enough, as soon as the Democratic nominee spoke the posts generated at Obama friendly blogs suddenly disappeared down the memory hole.
Unfortunately, the bloggers at Little Green Footballs caught on to what sites were attempting to smear Palin and publicized their findings.

Of course, the Obama campaign has denied all responsibility for the rumor mongering and character attacks upon the Palins. As a Chicagoan, I am skeptical of this disclaimer.

Obama’s campaign impresario is David Axelrod. He formerly worked as a political journalist for The Chicago Tribune before turning his talents to political consulting work. In the past, Axelrod has had to issue various denials for engaging in forms of political chicanery and subterfuge. In advance of the 2004 Democratic primary, Axelrod interviewed Blair Hull as a prospective client.

He questioned Hull about an order of protection contained in his divorce file. Hull’s refusal to discuss the matter at length caused Axelrod to reconsider his employment options and he hooked up with Obama for the Senate race.

Blair Hull was a wealthy, self-funded candidate. He had been a major contributor to various Democratic candidates. According to the Illinois State Board of Elections, Hull contributed or loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars to candidates, most notably campaign committees supporting Governor Rod
Blagojevich. The “pay to play” Illinois chief executive, Blagojevich managed to
reciprocate Hull’s favor by appointing Brenda Sexton, Hull’s ex-wife, to a plum position as the head of the Illinois Film Office in 2003 shortly after he was sworn in as governor. The appointment was widely criticized as Sexton had no prior film production experience and had previously worked in commercial real estate (Sexton eventually resigned her position in 2007 and announced that she was going to try to find work in Hollywood).

In a multi-candidate field, Blair Hull seemed to be cruising towards the nomination when the contents of his sealed divorce file became publicized. His former wife repaid Hull by joining in the chorus of criticism in the press. Hull quickly fell out of contention as Axelrod’s candidate, Barack Obama, secured the nomination by virtue of monolithic support from African American voters as he bested six other candidates.

Obama’s candidacy was helped by the decision of Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes not to wage a negative campaign relying upon opposition research discoveries that linked Illinois State Senator Obama to controversial and radical
figures that have become household names during the current campaign. When the
damage was done, Axelrod denied leaking the order of protection to his former newspaper colleagues.

Within a short space of time, history repeated itself and events broke in Obama’s favor once again.

On July 29, 2004, the Republic Senatorial nominee, Jack Ryan, withdrew from the general election. One week earlier, The Chicago Tribune successfully petitioned a California court to open his sealed divorce file over the objections of both Ryan and his former wife, Jeri Ryan, a television actress. The Obama camp denied responsibility for tipping the newspaper as to the contents of the file.

The bipartisan Republic State Party Chairman, Judy Baar Topinka, was accused of sabotaging the renomination of the incumbent GOP Senator Peter Fitzgerald before the primary by declining to endorse him for re-election.

After Fitzgerald opted not to file for re-election, Topinka left Jack Ryan to twist in the wind until his withdrawal and blocked the appointment of Jim Oberweis to fill the vacant ballot position. Although Oberweis had finished second in the primary and had the ability to finance his own campaign, Topinka and her allies ignored his offer to succeed the disgraced Ryan on the ballot and chose instead to invite the perennial candidate and political gadfly Alan Keyes to move to Illinois and face Obama in the November election. Talk about being given a “gimmee putt.” Nevertheless, rumors were circulated about the sexual orientation of the daughter of Keyes in order to further embarrass the social conservative.

What is past is prologue. All of these shenanigans seem familiar to
Chicagoans. Despite his eloquent rhetoric, Obama has always specialized in a vicious type of go for your opponent’s jugular politics since he objected to the nomination papers of all of his opponents to clear the primary ballot for himself in his first race for the Illinois Senate (a fact that he deliberately omitted from his autobiographical books). Go ask Alice, I think she knows. That is a reference to former Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer, a one time Obama ally, who was knifed by her ambitious political protégé.

One has to ask why the Obama campaign is panicking and resorting to using its friends on the left to libel Alaska Governor Sarah Palin? First of all, the Democrats seemed completely caught off guard by Senator McCain’s selection of Palin as his running mate. Secondly, Palin has proven to be immediately popular with the Republican base. She has solid conservative and reform credentials. Her true personal story is as compelling as the fable crafted and mass
manufactured to sell Obama.

Given the circumstances of his own birth, Obama and his supporters have looked hypocritical in attempting to attack Palin’s daughter, Bristol, for her pregnancy. The seventeen year old is planning to marry the father of her unborn child. It should be recalled that Stanley Ann Dunham was eighteen when her son, Barack Hussein Obama, was born. Accounts vary, but it seems definite that Obama was conceived out of wedlock and his parents’ marriage may well have been invalid due to his biological father’s bigamy. Was Obama’s mother a neglectful parent for sending her son to live with his maternal grandparents while she roamed the world at will pursuing her doctoral degree? Sexist critics
have opined that Sarah Palin ought not serve as vice president on account her children, including an infant son with special needs. What a double standard!

There is good reason for the Obama campaign to be scared. The election is shaping up as a marathon, not the victory lap that the Democrats expected.

Attacking Palin may prove to be a costly error of judgment on the part of anyonesupporting Obama’s candidacy.

Daniel J. Kelley is a regular contributor to “The Chicago Daily Observer.”