The Tiresome “Race Card” Debate
It’s the topic de jeur: Is McCain playing the race card by trying to scare voters from a black candidate? Or is Obama playing the race card by bringing up a mythical smear campaign to win sympathy?
My take follows this excerpt:
Senator John McCain’s campaign accused Barack Obama of playing “the race card’’ on Thursday, citing his remarks that Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.’’
“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,’’ Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’
Mr. Davis was alluding to comments that Mr. Obama made Wednesday in Missouri when he reacted to the increasingly negative tone, and negative ads that have been coming his way from the McCain campaign in recent days.
“So nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,’’ Mr. Obama said Wednesday in Springfield, Mo., in remarks that he echoed throughout the day. “You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky. That’s essentially the argument they’re making.’’
Mr. Obama has made similar statements about the lines of attack against him before, and was even more direct last month when he said: “We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?’’
The McCain campaign’s decision to make the charge now that Mr. Obama was playing the “race card” comes as it has adopted a far more aggressive, negative posture towards Mr. Obama in recent days, trying to tar him as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency with a series of statements by Mr. McCain and a series of negative ads – some of which have been condemned as misleading.
Mr. McCain said Thursday that he agreed with Mr. Davis’s statement. “I agree with it, and I’m disappointed that Senator Obama would say the things he’s saying,” Mr. McCain said on his campaign bus here, according to The Associated Press.
Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said: “This is a race about big challenges — a slumping economy, a broken foreign policy, and an energy crisis for everyone but the oil companies. Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue, but he does believe they’re using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign, and those are the issues he’ll continue to talk about.”
Who’s most at fault here? The campaign of John McCain needs to tone down the ‘race card’ rhetoric – because it’s very hard to make the case that Obama is wrong – there ARE Republicans out there pushing all kinds of scurrilous rumors in concerted viral e-mail campaigns, up to and including insinuations that Obama is the Anti-Christ (I kid you not). Racism is not overt in many of these attacks, but it is surely implied.
Yet Obama is not coming off smelling like a rose, either. His campaign is, in a pattern we have become QUITE familiar with, trying to have it both ways. They say “we’re not accusing McCain, directly, just Republicans”, but who is buying that? Just as the attacks against Obama make heavy use of racist implications without saying anything overtly racist, Obama’s campaign doesn’t have to say “John McCain” to make the connection between his campaign and the racists. Who is the “they” in “we know what kind of campaign they are going to run”? It’s not a mystery…
Also embedded in this debate is the old controversy of how much responsibility a candidate shoulders when his supporters make outrageous accusations. And the answer, in this day and age when anyone with the slightest bit of Internet savvy can broadcast worldwide, is not much. If the McCain camp were shown to be connected in any way, even tangentially, to these smear campaigns, that would be one thing…but I’ve seen no such proof.
Bottom line: BOTH camps need to get off this topic and quit wasting breath on this foolishness. We’ve got a real world of problems out there…race will play a part in this campaign, inevitably, but these dueling accusations of ‘race card’ will only feed the flames…
Ryan, my tongue is somewhat in cheek…sorry if that didn’t come through…but let me tell you, Europe DOES owe us, and big time…
However, we did what we did in World War II not out of a love for Europeans and their culture, but out of a sense that Hitler was a real and present danger to our national interests…and we were right to do what we did. I don’t ask Europeans to spend their whole life in abject genuflection before American might…but it would be nice if they would remember how much we sacrificed on their behalf (and continue to…our NATO allies are not devoting nearly enough resources to Afghanistan, and the populace in that country doesn’t even support the war THERE, much less in Iraq)…
And Ryan, I singled out France as one of the few countries that DOES remember…at least, part of France does…
Whoops – that country, in #52 above, refers to Italy…where their recent elections have turned in large part on their presence in Afghanistan…
[...] I’m sick of this topic, but we have gone into it in considerable detail in the comments two posts below, so it’s relevant. Rasmussen did a poll, and while the vast majority of the public thinks [...]
Man, I missed out on the chance to defend my take. Oh well. Better late than never:
1. The same guy that made the Harold Ford “call me” ad made the Paris/Brittney ad. I personally feel the “call me” ad was definitely racist. If you don’t, that’s cool. People disagree about stuff, or are just plain oblivious to the coded message to CERTAIN people.
2. Saying the Obama campaign “played the race card from the bottom of the deck” is racist. Period. It was deliberate. Make no mistake.
3. “Oh yeah, and he’s black”. Yeah, show me what he was even talking about. Was he talking about emails that say this? Did he actually mention the McCain folks anywhere near there? From what I can tell, that “and he’s black” speech was from back in June. What exactly was the context? If he was talking about emails that scared the public, I think that’s perfectly fair. Why is a speech he gave back in June suddenly an issue a month afterwards? Hmmm, coincides with going negative on Obama. It’s a perfect time to play the “‘race-card’ card”. Let’s be clear, Mark, the ONLY quote we’re talking about regarding Obama playing the race card is the “their going to scare you” comment. He was ridiculing the stupid ad by McCain. And, no, I’m sorry, ridiculing the “Barack for change” icon is beyond a stupid ad. Barack said it right, the McCain camp doesn’t speak to the issues.
4. Just because an ad campaign works, doesn’t make it a good ad campaign. It works because the media talks about it without saying “oh, this is stupid, they’re not even talking about the issues”. You know why? Because the media is a vapid disgusting discourse. It’s a gossip party and it makes me sick. When ad campaigns that are void of any cognitive thought and play to fears and emotion are publicly ridiculed, that will be a tremendous day for America. Or whatever other country we end up becoming if we continue going down this path.
5. Mark, I’m pretty sure Europe has showed us enough gratitude. Or is gratitude deserved in perpetuity? Especially after the right has ridiculed Europe for the past 40 years, specifically the “pinko-commie”ness of them all. I wouldn’t give us any gratitude for ridiculing their way of life, which seems to work ok for them.
And, I think a more appropriate question to ask about the Paris/Brittney ad is, “what is the first word that pops into your head when you see Paris/Brittney”? I bet you 1 in 10 thinks “slut”. “tramp”. Oh, but that’s no fault of the ad’s designer. Riiiiight. Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing to see here.
Mike, I agree that the ad is offensive because it compares Obama to two party girls – I said so earlier. It’s just not racist…Stupid, yes, but not racist…
One of whose parents gave money to the McCain campaign! Oh sweet irony.
They might as well have had a huge block text graphic over Barack saying “PIMP”. I do think that was a hidden meaning. I really do.
Oh, please, enough already…