From the
NYTimes:
Responding to a comment in The New York Times on Tuesday by a Staten Island congressman, Vito Fossella, that a Ferrer victory would mean going "right back to the antagonistic years under David Dinkins," Representatives Jerrold L. Nadler of Manhattan and Gregory W. Meeks of Queens released statements accusing him of using Mr. Dinkins, the city's only black mayor, to pit voters against one another.
"The Bloomberg campaign and Representative Fossella ought to know better than to inject this kind of coded, fear-mongering language into what ought to be a thoughtful debate about our city's future," Mr. Meeks said. "For the Republicans to fall back on tired, divisive scare-mongering the way Representative Fossella did is to show that they will do anything, including sowing seeds of divisiveness, in order to retain control of City Hall." Mr. Meeks, who added in an interview that Mr. Fossella's comments seemed aimed at dividing the city along ethnic lines. "There's always this coded language when you talk about David Dinkins like there's a dark cloud," he said. "First of all, it's not fair," he added, "and I don't think we should go there."
My take? Both sides are playing racial politics. Fossella dong some dirty work for Bloomberg. Meeks and Nadler doing some dirty work for Ferrer.
But I do think it highlights that the idea that race has no role in this election and the evaluation of the candidates as laughable.