Political Wisdom: Is Racism Rearing its Head in the Campaign?: WSJ Blog (um YES !)

[steve2470]

http://blogs.wsj.com/politicalperceptions/2008/10/11/political-wisdom-is-racism-rearing-its-head-in-the-campaign/?mod=googlenews_wsj

The campaign has been nasty enough this week that some people are starting to wonder whether racism is rearing its head in the political debate. Kai Wright, writing on theroot.com, thinks he sees some being used against Sen. Barack Obama. “No one should be surprised by the assault John McCain launched this week.”

The McCain campaign is “flailing,” Wright writes, and one result was a campaign event in New Mexico before an angry crowd that “sounded more like a mob than a rally.” Afterwards, Wright writes, “Team McCain had cooled things down a bit. They at least kept the race baiting out of McCain and Palin’s mouths—even if they still haven’t stopped others on the platform from conspicuously repeating ‘Barack Hussein Obama.’ But the crowd’s reactions this week lay bare the coded language McCain and Palin have deliberately used. The message from the McCain camp was clear: This Obama guy is different than you in ‘essential’ ways. He represents people who aren’t like you. Don’t trust him. He is other.”

Ross Douthat of The Atlantic begs to differ with some conservatives who argue that Republicans might be better off if Sen. John McCain loses this fall rather than wins in a squeaker and then has to try to govern with a Democratic Congress. “The convergence of an economic crisis and complete Democratic control of Washington should alarm even those conservatives eager to wash their hands of the GOP,” Douthat writes. “The best reason for even the most disaffected right-winger to root for a McCain victory is simple: To the extent that much of the progressive agenda is a program in search of a crisis to justify its implementation, an election that delivers a liberal candidate who’s adored by the media to White House, gives him huge majorities in both houses of Congress, and presents him with a worldwide state of emergency in which to govern, has the potential to be not just another loss for conservatives, but a once-in-a-generation defeat.”

National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein takes a look at McCain’s health care plan and tries to weed out the risks and the myths. “Obama accurately framed the central contrast between the nominees’ approaches. The bedrock goal of Obama’s plan is to reinforce the sharing of risk and cost between healthy and sick, young and old. By contrast, McCain, hoping to expand choice, would erode risk-sharing and accept sharper distinctions between the healthy and sick in both the availability and cost of coverage.”

more at link above

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. 'flailing' is a good word for it. Better to lose with dignity.

[political_Dem]

2. It's amazing that it took them that long to realize the racist behavior of the McCain campaign.

I mean, where were they weeks ago when the mobs were shouting "Kill Him!" Were they blind when McCain deliberately treated Mr. Obama like a shoe-shine boy during the first debate? Did they not know that the man refused to sign on for MLK day? :sarcasm:

I think they just have a case of the "johnny come lately" syndrome, myself. They just had to hold off acknowledging this abhorrent behavior until they couldn't hide it anymore.