COOPER: There's also the question of ruling after this and bringing the country together. It's going to be all the more harder to do that whoever wins with all this anger out there.

GERGEN: Yes. There is this -- I think one of the most striking things we've seen now in the last few days. We've seen it in the Palin rallies. We saw it at the McCain rally today. And we saw it to a considerable degree during the rescue package legislation.

There is this free floating sort of whipping around anger that could really lead to some violence. I think we're not far from that.

COOPER: Really?

GERGEN: I think it's so -- well, I really worry when we get people -- when you get the kind of rhetoric that you're getting at these rallies now. I think it's really imperative that the candidates try to calm people down. And that's why I've argued not only because of the question of the ugliness of it.