The Dems Trot Out the Race Card

Leave it to the Democrats and their surrogates in the media to bring out the race card now that Barack Obama has fallen behind in the polls. After all these months of campaigning, as well as the bruising Democratic primary between Obama and Hillary Clinton, it is now the Republicans and their white voters who are exhibiting racism because Obama is not winning.

Here is CNN's Jack Cafferty:

"Race is arguably the biggest issue in this election, and it’s one that nobody’s talking about.

The differences between Barack Obama and John McCain couldn’t be more well-defined. Obama wants to change Washington. McCain is a part of Washington and a part of the Bush legacy. Yet the polls remain close. Doesn’t make sense…unless it’s race.

Time magazine’s Michael Grunwald says race is the elephant in the room. He says Barack Obama needs to tread lightly as he fights back against the McCain-Palin campaign attacks.

He writes, “Over the past 18 months, Obama has been attacked as a naive novice, an empty suit, a tax-and-spend liberal, an arugula-grazing élitist and a corrupt ward heeler, but the only attacks that clearly stung him involved the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - attacks that portrayed him as an angry black man under the influence of an even angrier black man.”

The angry black man, he goes on to say, doesn’t have broad appeal in White America. And even though the makeup of our population is changing, whites are still the majority in this country. How ironic that the giant step forward of nominating an African American for president may ultimately keep us mired in the past.

Here’s my question to you: Will Barack Obama’s race cost him the White House?"

And here is Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius speaking before a crowd in Iowa City, Iowa on Tuesday:

“Have any of you noticed that Barack Obama is part African-American?” Sebelius asked in response to a question about why the election is so close. “That may be a factor. All the code language, all that doesn’t show up in the polls. And that may be a factor for some people.”......(Republicans) "will not go quietly into the darkness."

First, let me address the partisan Mr Cafferty (who clearly wants Obama to win): Jack, race is not the biggest issue in this campaign. America is fully prepared to elect a black president, Hispanic president, female president or Asian American president. Unfortunately for you, however, it may not be ready for Barack Obama and his leftist philosophy. If there are racial issues, it is not because he is part African-American. Any racial issues would be derived from the incendiary language of people like Jeremiah Wright, the man who infused race into this campaign big time. If whites associate Obama with Wright and are turned off by that whole mess, it doesn't make them racists. Obama stated at the outset of this campaign that if he failed to be elected, it would not be because of his race; rather it would be because his message did not resonate with the voters. He was correct. You are wrong, and you will not shame voters into voting for your candidate to disprove your race theory.

As for Governor Sibelius, yes, we have noticed that Obama is part African-American. Don't you Kansans have TVs in your state? As for the Republicans not going quietly into the darkness, did we not see a Democratic Primary obsessed with race? Bill Clinton was not using any code language when he accused Obama of "playing the race card on me-big time".

If race winds up playing any role in this election and Obama is defeated, then it will be because some voters perceive that he has a racial agenda that is closer to people like Jeremiah Wright than what he publicly proclaims. That would not be racism on the part of the voters.

Finally, what will the Caffertys and Sibelius' out there say in a future election when someone like Michael Steele or Lynn Swann gets the Republican nomination for president/VP? They will pull out the race card like they did against Clarence Thomas when he was nominated for the Supreme Court. You will hear all the old "Uncle Tom" slurs that are trotted out against black conservatives/Republicans.

Maybe by then, they will at least do it in code language.