We would not be in this particular situation with a McCain win.  McCain would IMO be a disaster--no answer at all for the economy other than even further deregulation and the bankruptcy of about 1/8 of our major corporations and loss of about 4 million more jobs than are currently gone.  No confidence in his decision-making on the economy, health care, immigration, and every chance that he would totally reverse course every 3 months as based on political pressure.  A continued dark cloud over our standing in the world and international diplomacy, a new Cold War, no real knowledge of the pulse of pop culture or main street, and unending gridlock over 80% of his proposals with a Liberal Congress.  All that plus considerable fatigue.  And Palin would be a catastrophic associate...seeking media attention every other day, puting forth the most divisive, tone-deaf, cynical policies and statements, getting bored with her job within 3 months and beginning to openly assert her own agenda without consulting with McCain, getting into constant quibbles with lawmakers or advocacy groups over petty, time-wasting gossipy issues, and offering McCain not a single piece of wise political advice.  Almost surely this country would be closer to total ruin under a McCain/Palin administration than now.

  But the opposition is a different group of people.  Liberals do about 6 things habitually, occasionally approaching a sort of 'benevolent soft Fascism':  Everyone has to be PC, religious imagery is suppressed, racism, sexism, gay-bashing, etc. are decried as among the greatest evils possible.  Smoking, driving without safety precautions, lack of adherence to very strict pollution codes, mistreating animals--these are seen as utterly intolerable and fought on a constant aggressive basis toward the goal of total Draconian conformity.  But these rigidities are what they are--merely issues with words and safety measures.  They are not the stepping stones to armed insurrection.  Conservatives, on the other hand, are the party of gun excess.  Of war as the best deterrant to (worse unseen future) war.  Of paranoia turning into vigilanteism.

In Obama, Conservatives have the perfect storm for lunacy.  He is foreign (sort of), has some variably-tenuous strands of acquiantnce with Islam, Chicago corruption, anarchy, Black liberation theology, etc., believes in the presence of a big, proactive government, is an intellectual (which Conservatives always view cynically) and is wildly popular among what Conservatives alternately believe are the useless, slavish and/or subversive masses.  Add in the fact that Bush left the country as a flaming graveyard with eight major crises at once--all that he either exasperated or let alone to fester and worsen, and the fact that, realistically, Republicans are a dead party with no solutions and no legitimate chance of retaking either house or the presidency for at least 6-8 years.  And add the fact that Conservatism has been increasingly maniacal and irresponsible since 9/11, regardless of who has been in charge, and that their propaganda machine is a better salesman for visceral, apocalyptic terror than is anything the relatively weak, dissolute Left can muster.

So there we have a paradox.  The country is likely to do much better in the foreseeable future with a Liberal agenda, but Conservatives will be more and more likely to doing something truly stupid and harmful, whereas under the miserable failure of the Conservative agenda, the country would suffer far more greatly, but there would be a much less likely wave of violence stringing from this.  How will Nazi Germany be avoided, then?  It is all on the Right (Bobo, you are incredibly brainwashed and your "Yo MTV Raps" comments, among others, do you a tremendous dis-service, and one to this forum).  Either they will present a temperate, reasonable leader who may or may not be elected president but will marginalize the fringe lunacy and insidiousness, or the disgraceful Right will flame itself out within a few years and go away and let some responsible, qualified adults fill their void and present some truly productive balance into Washington.