If Republican presidential candidate John McCain wants to salvage his tattered reputation for decency and perhaps even his sagging campaign, here's the speech he ought to deliver this weekend:

My friends, I want to tell you a few things about my opponent, Barack Obama, that I want all of you to know and remember.

Senator Obama is a patriotic American, as American as you or I. He loves this country and he wants, as badly as I do, to keep our citizens safe and to help them lead prosperous, healthy lives. He wants to improve education, clean up the environment and increase our nation's stature around the world, just as I do.

We happen to have very different ideas about how to meet these goals.

But Barack Obama is not a terrorist, as some of my supporters have shouted during campaign rallies. He is not a terrorist sympathizer or a secret ally of America's enemies, as certain guest and hosts on cable TV talk programs have said recently. He is not a criminal. He is not a baby killer. He is not a pervert.

Those who have been saying otherwise in the heat of this campaign are deeply wrong. Those who have been invoking Sen. Obama's middle name in an effort to suggest that he is somehow foreign or has hidden foreign ties are disgraceful.

Their words -- their signs and their chants -- have created a poisonous, even dangerous atmosphere not only in these mobs, but in this country. I hear people are expressing fear that we may elect as president an enemy of the United States and of our form of government.

That's false. And that kind of talk not only risks dividing us deeply as a people, but it can also lead to violence.

I reject it. I reject the support of people who, in my name, level such attacks on a good American and true patriot such as Barack Obama.

When I say that he is a "risky" candidate for president, I don't mean that he is an enemy of the United States. When I ask my followers, "Who is Barack Obama?" I don't mean to offer a wink to the vile smears about him in a viral e-mail of that name, but to suggest that voters have not examined his record closely enough.

Barack Obama is not an extremist, my friends. He is a liberal United States senator with whom I have many honest disagreements.

In the closing weeks of this hard fought race, I want my campaign staff and my supporters to highlight those disagreements and use those contrasts to persuade voters that I have a far better plan to lead this nation during the difficult months and years ahead than the gentleman from Illinois.

I want my campaign and my supporters to highlight the differences in our records, our experience, our agendas, and our judgment. I want them to be tough in making the argument that I am the stronger, steadier and more seasoned candidate for President of the United States.

I believe they can and will make that argument and that Gov. Sarah Palin and I will win on Nov. 4. And when we do (or on the off chance we don't), I don't want the country to be any more fractured, angry and scared than it already is.

No matter what the outcome, I want all of us to be able to come together on the morning of Nov. 5 --not as Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, but as Americans united in optimism determination and pride.

A good and fundamentally decent man will be our president elect. He will need the hopes and prayers of a nation to lift him. As one we must say "God bless him. And God bless the United States of America."