Anyone familiar with the cost of this kind of camera equipment has to doubt it would be a weapon of choice.

The video showed fists flying and the cameraman being knocked to the ground.

It got stranger still. Finally McKinney appeared before reporters. She summoned her supporters to the stage, separating them from the press. Next was heard a song by the artist Pink that was directed at a clearly demonized President Bush. McKinney then commenced a rambling speech that, among other things, implied fraud in the electronic voting that day. She also thanked or expressed support for all sorts of groups and even foreign nations, including Venezuela, an avowed enemy of the United States.

At least that's what we thought we heard.

Media reports have since surfaced of anti-Semitic remarks hurled at media by McKinney supporters as they left the headquarters. One reporter for a major national newspaper claimed she was threatened with being "thrown down the stairs or the escalator" if she didn't vacate an area near where McKinney was holed up.

Every corner of that headquarters emanated fear and hatred.

I have to make this clear. In last week's column, I recalled the bright and personable Cynthia McKinney I knew back in 1990. And it's not my place to summarily judge her in 2006.

But I now know why our polling of this primary runoff election showed so accurately that McKinney would be trounced. Clearly, this heavily African-American district she represented no longer wanted to be associated with her brand of representation.