While I was walking at the Pony Village Mall, I overhead a disturbing conversation at the Republican voter registration table. One of the persons seated at the registration table said that Obama was scary. The other two persons agreed with that statement. I continued walking, but I felt like telling these jittery people that real Americans don’t run scared.

Bush ran on a platform of scare tactics, and now John McCain is running the same “scare ’em” platform, with the same underhanded methods that smells of Karl Rove. McCain has nothing to offer as commander-in-chief other than his military experience, much of which was spent in a POW camp, not commanding the troops. It appears he is running a one-issue campaign that attempts to make Americans fear another Sept. 11, 2001, attack.    

Voters, don’t fall for Republican fear and hate tactics.

Remember that the Sept. 11, 2001, attack occurred on Bush’s watch. It was the Republicans who failed to keep us safe on that fateful day. Why would you trust them again to keep you safe?

It is Bush and McCain who are scary, not Obama, who was smart enough to have opposed the Iraq War in the first place.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said it best:  “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”

The biggest threat to the American way of life is a third Republican term, especially when their campaign tactics involve conversations about fear like the one I overheard at the mall. 

As an American who witnessed World War II, I refuse to run scared. And I plan to speak up whenever I encounter Republican lies and fear tactics.

Buck Rogers

Bandon