McCain – Race? Not me!
It appears to me that the McCain campaign may be executing a classic “Race? Not me!” campaign.
The past 24 hours reflect exactly how to pull it off with nary a fingerprint that matters.
First you help inject race into the campaign and raise its focus as an issue (as the McCain campaign did yesterday with a little door opening from Obama himself).
Second – this unleashes energy and anger in the African American community (energy that often the African American candidate, Obama, can not control). Leaders like James Clyburn take to the airwaves – and cable channels have two African Americans debate who is or isn’t raising race. In any case black faces dominate the cable airwaves and some of those faces are angry.
Third – McCain then appears to speak in front of an all black audience. White swing voters think “see, he isn’t racist”. And if the crowd applauds so much the better, if it boos him for tactics real or imagined white swing voters see a white guy “who is at least trying” and angry blacks who are not being duly appreciative of his effort– either way it isn’t good for Obama. McCain speaks today before the largely African American National Urban League.
Coincidence?
Ever since McCain’s NAACP speech that seemed to me to be directed at white swing voters and not at African Americans I have believed that the McCain campaign is adept at understanding how to raise race as an issue and use it to its advantage.
Is a pattern emerging?
Note: In 1982 I served as Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s Deputy Campaign Manager for Governor of California. A lot has been made of the so called “Bradely Effect” — I may have been only in my 20’s at the time — but I saw, first hand, a campaign that used the “Race? Not me” tactic with success.
God, Trippi, how ridiculous! Your quote:
“First you help inject race into the campaign and raise its focus as an issue (as the McCain campaign did yesterday with a little door opening from Obama himself).”
Your headline should be:
OBAMA OPENS DOOR AND INJECTS RACE INTO CAMPAIGN
Obama started all this.
Well, I guess when your audience is Dem, you can get away with it.
“Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “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 the dollar bills.’”
Barack Obama, June 10th
“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?“
Barack Obama – June 20th
All these comments are from the messiah hisself. He can’t stand not playing the race card. It’s right out of the 60’s liberal playbook. Blacks just gotta be the victim. Even when you are a Harvard grad running for President. LMAO
Can you imagine if this guy is elected? There will be furor from hell when he appoints his first white cabinet member.
Joe, aren’t YOU playing the race card?
Yes.
Evidently you didn’t get the talking points memo on this issue:
“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,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.
If the Obama camp says that McCain is not using race, someone else certainly is…Obama…and you, Joe.
Joe, take a slug of truth potion. Get off that lying liberal kool aid.
Anyone who thinks the Brittany/Paris add isn’t intended to create a white woman/black man subtext is either a fool or lying to themselves.
jhc – Note that in just a few hours the world has changed, and real issues are again being discussed.
Hey RLH,
I literally sent an email to good friends today with the exact same thought/concept. The world has changed recently and I can’t put my finger on why, but if you don’t feel it you’re dead or republican.
McCain’s “hand” is a morally bankrupt party, a morally bankrupt campaign, a diminished, unfit angry codger facing him in the mirror, and a junkie Stepford wife, what else is left for him to do? Play to hate, lie, cheat, do whatever it takes. It’s the GOP way.
Of course McCain is raising the race issue, denying that he’s doing so, then sounding all harmonious and open-minded. It’s kabuki theater. As a civil rights worker in Mississippi, then in Seattle, in the 60’s I heard the same kind of rhetorical two-step.
But playing defense against it won’t carry the day.
Go after Mc Cain for being trivial, superficial. It undermines everything he likes to think about himself. He thinks his strength is his seriousness, on foreign affairs, on national security, on all sorts of major policy issues.
So here’s some sample ad copy for a 30 second attack on McCain.
“John McCain. Not serious. Silly ads, silly attacks. Trivial. Like his choice of two female celebrities, he’s not to be taken seriously. Sings silly songs about bombing. Whines when criticized. Denies his own wrongdoing. John McCain. Unserious in serious times.”
“Obama started all this.”
Oh… I see. By being black, he started it all. Why didn’t I see that before? What a lot of nerve HE has! Running for president while being black!
jhc, like most people brought up in America, racism is such a part of your (and our) way of life that you don’t even see it.
Anyone who’s been paying attention knows where McCain’s coming from. He opposed for years making MLK’s birthday a holiday. Why? In 2000, McCain told reporters “I’ll always hate the gooks.” McCain’s South Caroline spokesman is the founder of “Southern Heritage” magazine and has publicly advocated voting for David Duke. McCain’s been raising funds for George Wallace’s son’s political race; Wallace Jr. is a associate of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a racist organization. We know how he feels about women, even his own wife (“At least i don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.”). And have a look at this article: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/10086
McCain’s an old-school racist; he hates everyone. But he can’t control himself; his temper and his bigotry gets the best of him, and it won’t be long before he blows himself up publicly. I’m looking forward to it.
jhc,
You quoted Obama as saying “Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “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 the dollar bills.”
So, if this is an example of Obama playing the race card, naturally if McCain played with Obama’s face on U.S. currency in a political ad, that would also suggest the race card was played, right? (Or is there a double standard here?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU&eurl=http://www.crooksandliars.com/page/2/
McCain ad. McCain portraying Obama as different. Looks different. I mean, can you imagine his face on Rushmore? The State of Liberty? On money, for Christ’s sake?
Race card, played by McCain. Plain and simple. And your inability or unwillingness to acknowledge that is a result of a) your ignorance, b) your white blindness, or c) your intellectual dishonesty (categories not mutually exclusive)
Drink the truth potion yourself before offering it to others.
Dr. Grumpus
I lived in AZ in the 80s and witnessed for myself McCain’s nasty disposition, explosive temper when asked by reporters questions he didn’t like, and all of the many times he spoke against, with anger and contempt, the Martin Luther King Holiday. He is lying about all of this race stuff. He’s not a very bright man and has advanced politically via his wife’s money and the prisoner of war narrative (check out the rest of his military story like graduating somewhere in the bottom 10 of his class, his leaving the military when he became aware that he would not be promoted. etc.). This is not a man of vision. He needs to travel with surrogates so that they can stand behind him and prompt him with facts he just can’t keep straight enough in his own mind to give intelligent answers. Go to votesmart.org and review his voting record over the years. There you will see what and whom he stands for – from his actions not his lying campaign declarations.
You quoted Obama as saying “Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “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 the dollar bills.”
THIS IS PLAYING THE RACE CARD IN MY BOOK!!!
Thanks Joe! This helps me understand a lot. The technology of politics. Too bad they don’t explain it this way on Meet The Press or Face The Nation. They’re not on our side, trying to help us understand what’s really going on. You’re like a ex-coach on Monday Night Football explaining the plays happening on the field. Help us break the code Joe!!
To all the people that think Obama “started all this”, I have a simple question. Where was your manufactured outrage when Obama made the same statements a few months ago? Statements that do nothing more than highlight an understanding of historical patterns of character assasination from the right wing. Why is it now, when McCain’s campaign has floundered and gaffed it’s way to loosing public interest in it’s candidate, not to mention an inability to defend policies that have been proven or determined to be failed or misguided, does a leader in the campaign feel it is necessary to deflect attention away from the real issues. As an independent voter, I have been watching with interest the change in McCain. What I see is a man that has sold out on too many of the core issues that made the senator a man I could consider a good choice. Now I am seeing a man that has lost his integrity, his moral compass and he seems to be an angry man painted into a corner by his own hand. His despiration is showing and it is an unattractive quality to see in a potential leader.
LUCY, did this incident change your mind about who you were going to vote for? I suspect, that most people who claim that Obama played the race card are people that are looking for reasons to make this claim.
I know that there is no way of knowing but I’d be very surprised if this comment made the difference for many people that weren’t already inclined to vote against Barack.
Lucy,
So, let me get this straight:
Barak “Hussien” Osama started making fun of his own name first.
Barak put out a political add plastering his face on a $100 bill (and Rushmore, and the Statue of Liberty).
No? Huh. So, where did those memes and images come from then?
McCain and the other Republicans. That is incontestable. Obama responds, as one needs to in a political campaign, and then he is accused of “playing the race card.”
Man, Bizarro World is in full force.
Thanks Joe for elucidating the way things work in the real world.
Dr. Grumpus
Joe,
You have half the picture.
McCain is just the benefactor of his parties Neo-Southern Strategy. This strategy is not so much dependent on making racists turn up to vote as it is making the voters in swing states believe that the racist voters showed up and swung the election. The perception that the racists swung the election is the fig leaf to hide the fix.
We can acknowledge that Obama has brought out many minority, young, students, people of color and the educated “latte drinking” white swing voters. This new voter turn out is more than enough to out poll the racist vote.
So what does this Neo-Southern Strategy do? It suppresses the vote of the minority, young, students, people of color before the election is even held. Just as it did in Florida in 2000, there has been a racial targeting of voters through voter challenges, political control of the DOJ and voting roll purges.
“In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color.
In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives – overwhelming Black voters.
In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.
In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.” ~ Greg Palast, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eRJbbtCbF8
To paraprase a line from The Wolfman: even a boy who’s pure at heart, and says his prayers at night, can vote GOP when the election looms, and the race card’s played just right.
says a lot about the american electorate doesn’t it
JHC – Puhleeeze – we get weeks of Obama is “arrogant, presumptuous and overstepping” and Obama’s raised the race card?
Whatever. An arrogant, presumptuous and overstepping Negro? Gosh, that wouldn’t be code for an uppity n*gger, would it? And, as soon as that is firmly running 24/7 on cable, we get endless repats of a smiling Obama with sultry, provacative, blond white women.
Who could possibly suspect racism from the same group that brought us everything from black welfare cadillac queens to Willie Horton?
Ever since Nixon, the Republicans have used covert racist attacks to win, because, God knows, they can’t win on real issues.
McCain has surrounded himself with Rove trained racists, of course they’re using race against Obama.
Do an Obama search on Snopes.com and over 40 email smear campaigns against Obama come up.
Who starts these whisper camapigns?
What the Repugs started in 2000 in FL, massive voter fraud, they have been working on perfecting throughout the country ever since.
We really need to come to grips with the fact that we aren’t dealing with two political parties which have different ideas on how to govern. We’re dealing with traitors who would happily finish what they started with Watergate: using whatever crimes necessary; voter fraud, money laundering, judicial misconduct – whatever it takes to undermine the electoral process, overthrow the Constitution and install the person in the White House who will do the bidding of the people who paid for their installation.
It worked with Bush and look where it’s gotten us.
McCain will never buck his donors. Even after what they did to him in SC in 2000, (more of the Repugs lovely race-baiting at work), he will toe the line if it gets him the big prize.
The big question is, what wouldn’t they do to stop Obama? I mean, really, how many people have died in the last 8 years for their unbridled greed? Do you really think they’ll take a chance on losing their slot at the trough now?
The Gods they serve are Money and Power. They will do anything, say anything, commit any crime. We are stupid if we measure them by the values of normal people. It’s like being shocked by Jeffrey Dahmer eating people because you wouldn’t eat people. We have to stop wasting time being shocked at the fact that they do what they do and start dealing with the fact that they’re going to keep doing it until they are forcibly stopped.
@Mr. Grumpus… GREAT POST. I wish we had another way to point at the phenomena you call ‘white blindness’…mainly because I see what you see plain as day. I know where you’re coming from – but the majority of Obama’s supporters are ‘white’…and have to be if he’s going to win. Language is failing us here…
IF we define ‘whiteness’ as an internal allegiance to this blindness you speak of…. or a identity distorted by particular blind spots…around race…and into the rushes of identity politics I go…
There is a blindness but I don’t think it’s particularly white… a lot of us see and acknowledge the ways the REthugs are using race, if in a time honored if dolled up ways… It is also interesting to me that not much has been made of McCain’s use of the term ‘gook’ and ‘cunt’ as he seems well versed is ways to diminish people not like him – but blushes when you call him out on this?
@teknikAL
Can you provide some links?
Republican survival depends on ‘The Angry White Vote’! It has used that phrase, in public, for what, 15 years?
The race card has been consistently played by the Republican party long before this campaign.
They rely on the general ignorance and lack of logical focus by their sheeple to perpetuate their propaganda and the ‘big lie’ political strategy tries to morph itself into something that can keep the political poison killing our Democracy.
McCain ‘the Crypt Keeper’ has nothing of any substance to say other wise he would be saying it and anyone that is still reacting to this fear mongering BS, want somebody to blame for gas prices and housing? You should be afraid that Phil Graham could be put IN CHARGE of the economy.Instead the ’sheeple’ scream about non-issues.
The point of the post was that the McCain campaign was able to have it both ways. Blame playing the race card on Obama, then let this whole debate about race explode (like it has here and on cable for the last few days). Then appear that the Urban League.
There is no way the Obama campaign wanted the debate and discussion to move to race.
As I have said elsewhere — If Obama opened the door – it sure seems to me the McCain campaign was ready and has a plan to drive 3 eighteen wheel trucks through it.
I do think it is a mistake to paint all Republicans as racist.
I do think that the McCain camp knew what it was doing on this one though.
You think maybe the McCain campaign wouldn’t be so quick to flip out over that statement and call it playing the race card when it was the McCain campaign that actually put Obama’s face on a $100 bill in one of their web ads over a month ago!
It’s all of a sudden conspicuously missing from their website, but it’s still on YouTube under the McCain page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU
What say you now, McCain defenders?
You want a guage of a man’s character, black or white?
Look at how they treat their families.
What John McCain did to his first wife and the lies he has spread about it is disgusting!
In his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For,” McCain wrote that he had separated from Carol before he began dating Hensley.
“I spent as much time with Cindy in Washington and Arizona as our jobs would allow,” McCain wrote. “I was separated from Carol, but our divorce would not become final until February of 1980.”
An examination of court documents tells a different story. McCain did not sue his wife for divorce until Feb. 19, 1980, and he wrote in his court petition that he and his wife had “cohabited” until Jan. 7 of that year — or for the first nine months of his relationship with Hensley.
Although McCain suggested in his autobiography that months passed between his divorce and remarriage, the divorce was granted April 2, 1980, and he wed Hensley in a private ceremony five weeks later. McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.
And the story of his total lack of respect for his current wife tells me that this man has no respect for people, in general, because to embarrass and ridicule two different people that he took a VOW to, at the very least, ‘respect’ reveals an ‘arrogance’ that is beyond ‘elitist’.
TRUE conservatives go look at the Abramoff cancer that is still festering in your party. PBS’s rebroadcast of ‘Capitol Crimes’ should be required viewing. The conservatives that scoff at pbs and refuse to expose themselves to ‘information’ on that basis risk crossing the fine line that seperates ‘ignorance’ and’stupidity’, The keating 5, McCain’s linking the domestic ‘anthrax’ attacks to Iraq prior to the war as part of the ‘lie’ network!
So when Obama repeatedly insinuates that John McCain is running (or will soon be running) a racist campaign against him, it’s racist for McCain to call him on it? Fascinating. This will probably sell to the kind of people who post comments at the dailykos but the rest of America will do what I just did: laugh. I’d say “nice try” but it wasn’t even that.
Look at McCain’s Celeb ad with the sound off. Know what I noticed first. After the sexy white girls are images of Obama with a tall phallic obelisk behind him.
Believe me the Cross in Huckabee’s commercial was intentional and so was this.
Joe Trippi said:
“There is no way the Obama campaign wanted the debate and discussion to move to race.”
It’s called a miscalculation, Joe. Yes, even Obama makes them. Since June he has been making this accusation. I don’t think he thought McCain would call him on it. And he sure as hell knew the media wouldn’t.
“Look at McCain’s Celeb ad with the sound off. Know what I noticed first. After the sexy white girls are images of Obama with a tall phallic obelisk behind him.
Believe me the Cross in Huckabee’s commercial was intentional and so was this.”
I’m actually turned on by interracial sex. And I didn’t read it that way. I assumed what was being conveyed, right or wrong, was that Obama is a lightweight. Incidentally, I disagree with that accusation. I think he lacks experience, but I do take him seriously.
This Democrat thinks Obama opened the door — not McCain.
BAC
Joe’s point is that Obama opened the door by accusing the McCain of playing the race card to instill fear in the electorate and when the McCain campaign defended itself, it somehow all developed into a McCain conspiracy to “have it both ways.” Didn’t know that Obama was helping tee-up McCain. Now all you lemming libs have launched into a full kos-like stream of indignation recalling every civil rights flashpoint from the MLK holiday to Florida. You libs play the victim so well. Take a look at Robert Byrd’s civil rights voting record and get real pissed off.
This is just another example of Obama’s poor judgement, one of many.
Truth is liberals have done more damage to blacks with their failed war on poverty than anything a cracker repub senator could every inflict on a race.
PS Just love the Paris Hilton white woman/black man subtext conspiray theory. Where do you get all these morons, Joe? On loan from kos? LMAO
It’s coming, Joe Trippi. Soon you’re gonna see ads from the McCain camp that sound like this.
Narrator: Obama is black. One drop black is still black in America. But is he ready to lead?
Narrator: Vote McCain. A white American who is 100% American.
McCain: I’m John McCain and I approved this message.
@JHC and the other conservatards;
how’s that War on Drugs coming along?
“It’s coming, Joe Trippi. Soon you’re gonna see ads from the McCain camp that sound like this.
Narrator: Obama is black. One drop black is still black in America. But is he ready to lead?
Narrator: Vote McCain. A white American who is 100% American.
McCain: I’m John McCain and I approved this message.
@JHC and the other conservatards;
how’s that War on Drugs coming along?”
Until the last part, I thought you were satirizing yourself.
“Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “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 the dollar bills.”
Okay. Let me try to wade through this muck.
Obama says that, in the absence of a positive message, the Republicans will make this election about character – and they will do this by questioning his patriotism, making ominous references to his scary middle name, cite his scary indonesian madrassa education, flood the airwaves with his scary black preacher who says scary things at his black church and says them without shame and with an unabashed black accent, and question his loyalty to this country in a time of war. So Obama points out that this is what they will do, and indeed what they have done, and THIS is the race card?
I am not particularly fond or supportive of Barack Obama, but in a way I am sort of enjoying this. Inexperience, elitism, and now the ‘race card.’ McCain is using the same exact campaign choreography as Clinton, with apparently the same effectiveness. I’m not sure McCain will get 18 million votes, though.
“PS Just love the Paris Hilton white woman/black man subtext conspiray theory. Where do you get all these morons, Joe? On loan from kos? LMAO”
OK, now you’re just baiting. You can pretend that race doesn’t play a part in that commercial. But pretending is what you’re doing.
Thanks for the continuing comedy, rmp. Aren’t you missing a “u?” You know, as in r – u – m – p, as in ass? LMAO
“conservatards,” love it.
The war on drugs is going a lot better than the war on poverty. Juvenile drug abuse has declined in the last four decades. Drug interdiction outcomes are up and getting better…fencing the border will be a huge help. I would be for relaxing some of the sentencing guidelines, though.
In the meantime, poverty has steadily climbed from 1965 when it was 13% and falling, when LBJ launched his effort that has only resulted in creating a huge underclass. His strategy to buy votes for dems on a massive scale has worked, unfortunately.
“Thanks for the continuing comedy, rmp. Aren’t you missing a “u?” You know, as in r – u – m – p, as in ass? LMAO”
And here we have demonstrated the intellect of jhc.
Don’t you know comedy when you see it, rump?
Hi Expert, what made you want to write on McCain – Race? Not me!? I was wondering, because I have been thinking about this since last Friday.
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this is another awesome Mccain parody… check it out. Its hilarious…(actually it would be hilarious if the whole Mccain situation wouldn’t be that sad)