In a more attractive world I would have preferred to ignore the ongoing clatter and chatter regarding Sen. Barack Obama’s supposed predilections towards redistribution, Marxism and Socialism. Audio tapes and old clippings have been produced where Obama comments on the shortcomings of the Warren Court and invokes the dreaded “R word.” Unfortunately, Sen. McCain is still clucking about it out on the trail and his supporter in both the media and the blogosphere continue the chant. It makes for some good sound bites, but I’m afraid that it’s high time to remind some of my conservative, McCain-supporting friends of some uncomfortable facts.

John McCain’s issues platform calls for a plan to fix Social Security which still involves collecting money from people, including the wealthy, and redistributing it to poor people, many of whom will pay no taxes at all. McCain has a health-care plan which will collect money from people, including the wealthy who can afford their own health insurance, and redistribute it in the form of $5,000 checks to poor people without such coverage, many of whom will pay no taxes. (In fact, he’s made a point of criticizing Obama’s health care plan over just this point.) McCain continues to tolerate and support a progressive tax system – and I’m just taking him directly on his word about how he would structure proposed tax rates and cuts here – which will collect a larger amount of money from people who earn more and deposit those funds into a Federal system which will, in some cases, redistribute some of those funds to Americans who earn less money, some of whom will pay no taxes at all.

And while we’re on the subject, both McCain and Obama recently gave their support (if reluctantly) to a bailout plan which will take taxpayer money and buy into the banking system. McCain goes one step further and proposes to take your taxpayer dollars and buy out the mortgages of distressed homeowners, replacing them with new deals. Ladies and gentlemen, you need to face up to a bit of “straight talk” on this subject. You are already living in an America with a fully-functional socialist government, and it has been so for the entire living memory of virtually every person reading this column. And let us not forget that John McCain has had his hand on the wheel of that ship for decades. The only real question for voters here is exactly how much socialism you can tolerate with your morning coffee.

And yet McCain supporters – including some who I personally know are much better and smarter than this – continue chattering on about “the R word” as if it’s some sort of holy talisman which will sink Obama like a stone and lift McCain up on the wings of an energized electorate. John McCain is a great man, an honest to God American hero and an experienced leader. All through this campaign, while doing my series of “contrast and compare” pieces, I have noted that his domestic policy proposals were superior to Obama’s in my eyes. I rather wish he had continued campaigning on exactly those points. This frantic thrashing about in trying to paint Obama as some sort of Marxist smells of the desperate flailing of a drowning man going down for the third time with no lifeboat in sight. We may never know for sure what brought the campaign to this point, but perhaps Big Mac should have reached for a life preserver instead of an anchor.