Maine GOP chair frets over mysterious 'black people'

[babylonsister]

Posted with permission.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/15/15189906-maine-gop-chair-frets-over-mysterious-black-people

Maine GOP chair frets over mysterious 'black people'
By Steve Benen
-
Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:01 AM EST


If the Republican Party hopes to improve its standing with African-American voters, it's going to have to do better than this.

Yes, Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster is troubled by the fact that "dozens of black people" voted in rural areas this year, which he sees as problematic because "nobody" in those towns "knows anyone who's black." Asked to identify which towns, the state GOP official refused.

So, let me get this straight. President Obama won the state of Maine by a 56% to 41% margin. In terms of raw popular votes, the Democrat's advantage was well over 100,000 votes in the state.

But for the chairman of the Maine Republican Party, the real outrage here is that "dozens of black people," who some local Republicans didn't recognize, cast ballots on Election Day.

Webster added, "I'm not politically correct." Ya don't say.

I'm trying to imagine the thought process that leads a Republican official to think this way. In this guy's mind, Democrats were so worried about losing Maine -- which hasn't been competitive in 20 years, and which borders an actual swing state -- that they sent hordes of mysterious African-American voters into small rural towns to cast ballots. This, according to the chairman of the state's Republican Party, was the fiendish plan Dems cooked up to win a state they were going to win anyway.

Just, wow.

But wait, it gets worse. Webster has cooked up a plan to combat the voter fraud that exists in his imagination.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Webster told the BDN that he plans to send "several thousand" postcards with a photo of the State House to the addresses of voters who registered on Election Day as a way to investigate potential voter fraud.

"They'll go out in first-class mail," he said. "I don't expect people to respond to the question. The concept behind this is to see if they are returned. This is a reasonably inexpensive effort by me to settle the question" of whether people travel to Maine communities to vote fraudulently.

If cards come back as undeliverable, Webster believes it will prove his theory that people travel to Maine to vote fraudulently.

I see. The scourge of mysterious black voters in rural Maine is so serious that the chairman of the state GOP has cooked up a scheme based on vote caging.

Webster added that his efforts are not racially motivated. No, of course not. Why would anyone think that?

[yardwork]

1. I thought that this was the Onion at first. It is not.

[The Blue Flower]

2. "Nobody knows anyone who's black"

Got it. He can't even say, "Some of my best friends are black." We don't know any, plus they're invisible to us. Therefore, they must not exist.

[TwilightGardener]

3. Oh, those weren't black people, they were "Blah People".

Ricky Santorum knows them.

[eShirl]

4. such an idiot

even other Maine Republicans are embarrassed

http://www.pressherald.com/politics/Maine-Republican-chairman-questions-black-voters-.html
"Megan Sanborn, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Charlie Summers (R who lost his bid for Olympia Snowe's Senate seat to Angus King), said Summers was shocked when he watched the video of the interview on WCSH.

"Our office has not heard any complaints about Election Day," Sanborn said. "Secretary Summers jealously guards the right of everyone to vote and feels that they should." "

[LiberalAndProud]

5. Do people in Maine identify by race when they vote?

This guy is whacked. That's all.

[Blue Meany]

6. There are not very many people of color in Maine, especially in rural areas, so

black people definitely do get noticed here in ways that they wouldn't elsewhere. OTOH, the strongest prejudice is against people "from away," which is to say anyone who didn't grow up here and anyone who deviates from rural Maine culture. People "from away" tend to be better educated and more affluent, but lack rural survival skills.

Given the low numbers of people of color, anyone black outside of the larger towns will be automatically be seen as "from away." Consequently, Mainers often act in ways that are racist and sincerely believe that they are not racist, because (they think) they would have treated anyone the same way. But, in this instance, it is their color that defines the blacks as being from away. I'm sure that whites who were not known would not engender the same suspicion.