On Sept. 11, McCain and Obama stand together

FAIRFAX, Va. — Seven years after terrorist attacks plunged the United States into despair and then lifted it into unprecedented - if fleeting - unity, the nation is now entangled in an election that highlights the divisiveness that defines it.

On Thursday, at Ground Zero, the presidential candidates will take a campaign-trail time-out to stand together.

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AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

The Manhattan skyline still has a void where the World Trade Center once stood.

REMEMBERNG SEPTEMBER 11

Photos:
• Scenes from New York
• Scenes from Pennsylvania
• Pentagon, White House
• Exhibit visits ATL in '08
• Observances in Atlanta

Articles:
• Nation has moment of silence
• Gwinnett honors victims
• Teen seeks to make 9/11 federal holiday
• Obama, McCain at Ground Zero
• Pentagon memorial dedicated
• Survivors still trying to cope

Luckovich: Horror reflected

Local Events: Commemorations
• Sign: National book of remembrance

“We will put aside politics and come together to renew that unity,” Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain said in a joint statement reminding Americans that on Sept. 11, 2001, “we were united as one American family.”

On Sept. 11, 2008, not as much. Driven by stereotypes, campaign ads, blogs, caustic comedians and 24-hour cable operations, the nation is divided.

The messages are ceaseless: Obama is inexperienced. McCain is old. Joe Biden is a windbag. McCain is very old. Sarah Palin is, well, we’re not quite sure what Sarah Palin is.

The divisiveness was on display Wednesday on Old Lee Highway - a suburban Virginia street named for a protagonist during the high watermark of American divisiveness - before and after a McCain-Palin rally that drew thousands.

For a few hours, the two camps were separated by two lanes of pavement, a double yellow line and a philosophical chasm about what would happen if the other side won the White House.

“I think it would be dangerous,” McCain backer Carly Hearst of Alexandria, Va., said of an Obama victory. “I believe we would be headed toward a socialistic economy and I believe our national security would be greatly jeopardized.”

Across the street, amid the sign-waving Obama backers, Mary Lee Cerillo of Centerville, Va., offered dire predictions about what a President McCain would mean for the nation and the world.

“I think our economy would go right down the tubes. I think we are going to go to war with Iran and I think it is going to be more of the same,” Cerillo said.

Early September Gallup Poll numbers quantify the national divisions. If you know a little about a person - age, gender, race, marital status - you have a pretty good chance at guessing if he or she is in an Obama or a McCain.

Female? Only about a four in 10 chance you back McCain. White male? Only about a one in three chance you’re for Obama. Age 29 or under? Just under a one in three chance you’re for McCain.

Black? Only a 7 percent chance you’re for McCain. Hispanic? Under a one in three chance you’re for McCain.

White and attend church weekly? Only a one in four chance you’re for Obama.

Single? Only a one in three chance you’re for McCain.

Looking for something approaching unity? Two places: A healthy majority of Americans don’t think much of the job the president they elected is doing. And a larger, unhealthy majority - 80 percentish in some polls - believes the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Not necessarily a pretty picture, but pollster John Zogby finds hope in the negative numbers.

“Yes, we are more divided than we were in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 because 9/11 was a bonding moment,” he said “Not only among the people themselves but people with their institutions. They needed the safety and security and comfort of government, the political parties, the church, everything.”

It’s a sentiment the nation saw a fleeting glimpse of last week when Hurricane Gustav - for one day - blew away politics and put the Republican National Convention on hold as McCain urged delegates to take off their GOP hats and put on their American hats.

That lasted until the all-clear was sounded and both sides gleefully re-donned their partisan head wear.

But Zogby still finds cause for optimism.

“We’re less divided than we were in 2004,” he said, calling that year’s presidential race an “Armageddon election” followed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which he sees as “more of a defining moment in our history than 9/11 because it created the last straw in a crisis in confidence.”