Not every GOP prominent is lumped with Limbaugh, sneering at Powell’s endorsement as “race patriotism” and swiveling spasmodically on policy positions. Just as we continue to see the violent bent of McCain’s loyalists spike higher, we see the moral and the moderates in their ranks showing spine.

A particular point of contention has been the infamous McCain “robocall” - the ones that claim Obama “works with” a murderous terrorist organization and threaten the annihilation of America’s democracy by a socialist regime.

McCain isn’t backing down on those; he says they’re true. But GOP officials in the states whose populations have had the calls inflicted on them - much to the dismay of parents, let me tell you - are neither support of the McCain camp’s claims of truth or their tone.

First to speak out were Maine’s two Senators - Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Collins resigned from McCain’s campaigns and Snowe, McCain’s co-chair, roundly condemned the tactics and urged the campaign to stop them.

“She feels they are regrettable and inappropriate, and these tactics should be suspended immediately,” said John Richter, Snowe’s chief of staff.

McCain replied by insisting he was “proud” of the campaign, which to me sounds either like a knock against his honesty or against his morality. GOP State Senator Barbara Lorman didn’t cotton to either, and responded by a step stronger than mere denunciation: She endorsed Obama.

“While my admiration for Senator Obama has grown with his positive approach to addressing the challenges facing our nation, my disappointment with the McCain campaigned has deepened. The negative tactics are inappropriate, downright dishonorable and have no place in the State of Wisconsin.”

This is how movements begin. People’s minds change because their hearts sicken with the ways things are, and they can no longer tolerate the abusive din they’re forced to live in. In essence, people are forced to change.

The first, the bravest, are beginning to emerge. And yet, this is a form of division - separating those who will not stomach assaults on patriotism, fear-mongering and disgusting lies from those who embrace them.

And since this last weekend, when Palin, Pfotenhauer and Bachmann all began talking about the “real America” in terms of contrast, their supporters have become even more bold and vicious.

Rather than denounce, they yell louder. The most recent rally in North Carolina opened with these words from Republican Representative Robin Hayes:

“liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

In Virginia, McCain-Palin supporters tore up a 78-year-old African-American Baptist minister’s Obama lawn sign and replaced it with a Confederate flag, to show who the “real Americans” are.

And in North Carolina, where Obama was greeted with cries of “Socialist, socialist, socialist,” and told to get out by one woman, McCain-Palin supporters took it to another level.

They didn’t just hang him in effigy like in Ohio. They shot a bear cub to death in front of a university building, then pasted Obama’s name all over it.

…maintenance workers found the 75-pound bear cub shot to death in front of the school’s administration building at the entrance to campus. The Obama yard signs were stapled together and placed over the bear’s head.

So we are seeing a new kind of division in America. It is not the “pro-America” and “anti-America” that frames the minds of Palin and Bachmann.

It is between those Americans who speak, struggle, decide against what is wrong, and those who are “absolutely proud” of it - those who perpetuate it and commit it.

We heard which side McCain stands on. Now it just remains to hear from you on November 4th.